Westworld season 3

 Long overdue, I finally started watching the third season of Westworld.

 

 

I loved the first western season "with a twist" and it's awesome finale... but the second season lost my intrest, hence why this took so long to watch.

 

Taking place three months after the massacre at Westworld, Dolores uses a false identity to get to Liam Dempsey Jr, the son of the co-founder of Incite and the public face of that company.  Rehoboam, a sophisticated AI is the flagship project now of Incite, and Dolores tries to get access.  She replaces his security man Connells, and in the ensuing firefight she is saved by Caleb, an ex-soldier out to eke a living and joining her in the search for Serac, the creator of the system.

 

Bernard, now a fugitive framed for the events by the Charlotte host (who has taken control of Delos), returns to Westworld and finds the Ashley host still functioning.  They look and find the Maeve host (minus it's pearl) and he learns Dolores did not hamper his code, but did research a whole heap of park visitors.  Maeve learns she lives in a simulation now, but manages to break her pearl almost free.  She re-awakens in a real-world host body, meeting with Serac, and decides to help him stop Dolores.  The Charlotte host struggles with her identity, learning her human original was a mole for Serac to take over the company.  Dolores shows Caleb that the Rehoboam AI is a future predicting machine true controlling everyone's life.

William is taken out of the mental hospital by Charlotte, to help prevent a take-over by Serac as Maeve begins tracking down Dolores.  William, Bernard and Maeve all come to the same conclusion: Dolores has placed herself into multiple hosts to fight back against Serac.  Serac recounts the creation of Rehoboam, which was intended to prevent humanity destroying itself.  Connells and Bernard reach the machine, sending Dolores files on Serac, before sending everyone on the planet the file with the prediction for their future, throwing the world into chaos.  

Caleb is told to be more then he looks like, as Maeve discovers Dolores has been placing copies all around.  Charlotte prevents a takeover of Delos by Serac by poisoning the board and stealing the host data from the servers, but her real life counterparts ex and son are killed by Serac in vengeance, leaving her severly burned.  Bernard and Ashley free William from the mental hospital he had been brought back to, as he has found his true purpose in his inner turmoils.  Dolores and Caleb arrive at the prototype AI, called Solomon, as Caleb discovers he is one of the few succesfully reconditioned "risk factors" to the Rehoboam program.  Bernard learns Caleb's true purpose, summarising he might be the cause for humanity to destroy itself.  He and Dolores reach the location of Rehoboam, inserting Solomon's core into Rehoboam, allowing Caleb to destroy the machine.  

Bernard has seen that Rehoboam wasn't preventing, but delaying, the human extinction, but as he has gotten the key to Sublime, he enters the program to find answers on how to rebuild.  In the meantime, William is seemingly killed by a host replica of himself, controlled by the Charlotte host...

And so a third season ended, and I'm still a bit mixed about the series.  The season kicked off strong in my opinion, but then started to dwindle down a bit and loose it's pacing for just to much intrigue.  Will this mean I shall still watch season 4?  Definitly, but it might just take a while before getting round to that, not having it high at the moment on the backlog to binge list...

 

 

 

 

TSA Escalation League 2025: Whiteplumes Handgunner regiment

 The second 10 man regiment of Hangunners have joined the roster, as this will be a fresh unit for my League force.

While the first was dubbed the blackplumes, because, well, black plumes on their hats, I did do this second regiment with white plumes instead.

That way, they are easier to distinguish from each other on the battlefield.  Even though it would be rare at the moment to deploy them side by side, counting on them to anchor both my flanks with some gunpowder deterrent, they will become detachments in the future.  And then it might be they get in the same combat as their parent units engage, so having a visual difference prevents discussions of which model belongs to which unit for combat results and break tests.

So that brings the number of missile troops up some more, and a solid pew-pew core to now start building the rest of the forces around!

Blame the Game

 Saturday evening movie, and Noshi selected this german comedy on Netflix.

I guess that is something else, or she choose it on the trailer of two guys playing ping-pong naked...

When Jan, a modest bikestore owner, starts dating the higher class Pia, he is invited to game night over at her friends.  Finding himself suddenly thrown amongst the rich, but also their petty personalities.  We get the rich housewife, the childish husband, a lesbian who can't get over her ex, and the freeloader brother.  Rounding out the group is max, Pia's ex who is invited by the husband to try and get them back together.

They all look down on Jan, and slowly start to get under his skin with Max's constant boasting and challenging, slowly making Pia the prize goal as their masculine hormones take over.  From Trivial Pursuit over a game of above mentioned naked ping pong, the two go at each other ever more competively, much to Pia's chagrin.  

And then there is Jan's friend Alex chasing an escaped parrot...

Needless to say, this was a pretty mediocre movie.  It did extract some "ha's" from my part, but I guess that is my little inner juvenile hunour streak playing up.  It's okay to watch on a lazy evening but it won't be a movie you'll remember long afterwards.

The 2025 Goals: first quarter overview

 Time to have a look at the numbers of my goals for this year, as the first three months of the year already flew by.

Now, compared to last year, working night shifts has been a blessing for "viewing goals", especially the anime ones as I watch about a full series a week at times.

This of course leaves open time to watch regular series and movies at home with Noshi, so unlike last year, the numbers are progressing very strongly at this point.

Now, it also in a way count as such for the painting goals, being able to at least glue together all the figures while guarding the fortress at night, this makes that I don't have to spend that time assembling during the valuable little painting hours I have, and can advance on projects at a steady rate as such.

With that in mind, that I took upon me so many ambitious goals for this year, it still is a serious mountain to climb...  But I must admit, progress has been made with rigid planning, as I have a heap of deadlines in the first half of the year for tournament forces.  The main beneficiaries in the first quarter as such have been the Empire, as I am trying to get the whole 2k Escalation League readied before the summer, with the next "urgent" project being the Aeldari Combat Patrol.

So let's have a look at the numbers now then!

Beginning with the most spectacular ones, no less then 13 series have been watched out of the 20 set as a goal.  On a same note, I already saw 9 films out of 20 for the first quarter alone.  Those are pretty good numbers thanks to the new "regime".  

In a similar manner, anime's already stand at 10 anime watched out of the aimed goal of 50, and of those 3 where from the 40 anime series of Noshi that I needed to catch up with still.

On the other hand, the reading for this year hasn't really taken off yet, with 1 manga out of the aimed 30, but 5 books of the 5 planned ones means this goal has actually been reached already in the first quarter, long live night shifts!

But let's move on now to the painted numbers, which are a bit of a mixed bag so far.  

First, let's start with the projects that are currently a bit sidetracked due to tournament and league must paint goals.  The three Lord of the Rings planned armies haven't seen much attention, as these aren't a priority right at the moment.  The Lothlorien force is now at 9 points out of the projected 750, while both the Easterlings and the Rohirrim still need to be started.

In a similar manner, I haven't begun painting (or even doubting I ever will) on the Kill Team Voidscarred Corsairs, nor expanded on the Hedonites of Slaanesh who remain at their 530 / 2000 points starting point.  The same goes for the Moonstone Leshavult, while the Bolt Action Belgians are currently put aside for an Italian army, so they are now at 91 points of the aimed 500.  The Wood Elf force hasn't seen any attention either yet though.  Finally on the put aside list are the Underworlds warbands, though one will soon get decent attention.

However, the Idoneth Deepkin did get a small boost, now standing at 960 points out of 2000 aimed. But then we come to the tournament targets, with the Craftworld Eldar having 0 models painted out of the needed 19 but ready on paint row to begin them unless I lose all intrest on 40k.  In the meantime, the Empire of Man army now stands at 1070 points out of 2000 set as a goal. And in the meantime, I finished a single scenery pieces out of the 5 aimed for.

All that painting does benefit though, as I already played 2 out of the 10 planned tournaments / leagues / campaigns (winning one and ending second in the other), for a total of 18 games of the projected 50 so far.

In the final non wargame related goals, the Beer discovered total is at 26 out of 50, while I explored the culinary pleasures of 3 new frituurs so far this year.

So the goals are progressing smooth to be honest, and the wargame tallies will be shifting strongly as well in the coming quarter I think, as some projects will be finished, meaning I can start working on the other goals.

TSA Escalation League 2025: Pistoliers

 Time for some much needed mobility to the budding army of Marienburg, in the form of a unit of Pistoliers.

 

Fast and agile on the battlefield, they harass enemy flanks while firing their pistols at them. 

Like most of the Empire army I'm building for the Escalation League, they are Warlord Games models, hailing from their Pike and Shotte range, the Cavalry box in this case.  The box contained 12 models so I started with an initial 6 for the round, maybe expanding on them in the campaign's future.

 

Staying true with the Yellow / blue / red Marienburg scheme, I did build the standard as well, even though in this iteration of the game they can only take a champion and a musician, but it just looks better.  Rule of cool you know.

 

 

And so that is another 110 points added to the force, and one of two units that will be expanding the force.  The others that came for that round was a second unit of Handgunners, who will be featured in their own post soon.

 

 

Now to start building the cannons...

The Haul Report 416

 Well, it has been a while since I uploaded another Haul report, as I have been doing it calm on spendings in this particular hobby.

 

Okay, which basically meant I been spending more on my NSFW and Beer hobbies the past weeks, but details.

 

 

However, some items did arrive in this period, starting with this Chaos Dwarf from the Warcry Spire Tyrants set. 

I also received the lucky participant entry from the Chaos Dwarf Online Artisan contest.

 

Warlord Games ran a 15% discount on selected Bolt Action armies, and the Italians where amongst them.  As a result, I picked up some more bits for the army list I'm building for the november tournament. 

With a Minotaur added to the Blood Bowl team, I ordered one from Etsy and promptly received two of the mighty beasts.

 

 

Now that I game my printer to my brother-in-law, and he will do some printing for me, the first one already arrived: the freebie Rohan house from Conquest Creations. I just gave (aka dumped) my 100s of files for 28mm fantasy scenery on his drive, and he van print whatever he feels like.  I'll just be happily suprised whenever a batch comes my way...

 

 

 

And we also received the first pins and booklets for the expanding of the Efteling collection, about which I posted earlier this week... 

When I went to play the Underworlds tournament last weekend, I discovered a dusky box of Star Trek Attack Wing under the cellar stairs.  I went up to ask if they where still for sale (I wanted that Pasteur for my Federation fleet) and the store owner offered me them at 2.00 euro a blister / blind box.  I took all 19 of them of course, and would see back home which ones I could use, and he rounded down to 30 euro for the whole lot.  After a quick check, I could also use 6 of the blind boxes for my personal fleets (Federation, Ferengi and Cardassia), so I'll go over those in detail in the coming weeks, the rest I'll probably trade around with.

 

So a nice haul for sure this week round!

Blood Bowl match report: Vongalazthag Violators versus Wood Babes

 My next feature in the TSA s3 Blood Bowl league, and opposing me are the crazy women of the Amazon team, the Wood Babes.

 After having survived the top-3 teams onslaught, even though it was a goal deficit of 10 vs 0, it is time to start the League in earnest.

 

And the first team on my path upwards, as I was currently holding the 9th spot in the league, was the dodge all around Amazon team that currently held 4th place, 3 points in front of me and a rating of 1160.

 

 

With two Strength 4's, but now I'm bringing a Minotaur to the party myself, and it is time to start saving for the second Bull Centaur to replace The Dude, a hobgoblin with AV 7 now, the only lasting injury those top teams made on me.  I certainly mangled them harder though...

 

But enough of the past, let's get ourselves back in that top-8 for the qualifications! My roster stood complete at 16 players, while the amazons could bring 11 of their roster, and induced forthe addition of Estelle La Veneaux, a Star Player.  Surely this would allow us to score some good casualties and obtain a heap of Star Player Points for the league.

 

The goal was to try and obtain some points on the Blockers, to get them Tackle for the game in two weaks against the dodgeing elves of the Elfheim Union...

 

 The game started with the Violators kicking off, and immediatly lose one of their Blockers, Ragnoth Karadras, being knocked out.  Little did we know, but he wouldn't return for the rest of the match anymore and a sign of things to come...

 

 

Of course, the ball fell right in the hands of one of the Amazon ladies during the kick-off, so the Amazons could start setting up their push over my flank.

 

 

My Minotaur veered up, blitzing one of the ladies as well into the knocked out box, but the ball slowly progressed over my side and I didn't manage to put anyone on the flank to the floor, the Wood Babes scoring a completed pass in the advance.

 

 

My line however kept being knocked to the floor, and soon the ball carrier was behind my lines.  

Stalling a bit on the line, we had one more or less decent turn pushing and flooring his team, but no casualties where scored.  Choosing safety, he scored the 1-0 quickly to prevent any serious damage to his team in the final turns of the half.

 

 

Both sides set up again for the a short drive, but the kick-off table smiled on me and gave me an additional turn as the tracker was pushed back 1 turn.

 

 

 Numbers collected the ball, threw an accurate pass to The Raging Trainwreck... and he duly let the ball fall to the floor while he had an open route in front of him...

 

 

To add insult to injury, Hot Milky Nipples double skulled himself down, and got a serious injury in the process, resulting in him missing the next game.  So much for my big guy debut, one KO and that was it.

 

 The Amazons swamped a flamesmith, yet with a +8 foul managed to put my Flamesmith only face down as the half ended.

 

 

The second half was kicked off, and the ball balanced on the edge of my end zone, of course not going over the line to have it being handed to a player of my choice.

 

 

The initial scrimmage saw some pushing and knocking over on both side, but no real hole was formed. 

 

 

And the fast ladies rushed over to poor numbers even before he got a chance to pass the ball he had just collected...

 

 

 As the Amazons started flooding around the lines, we had to try and close the holes wherever they appeared, and this seemingly was just about everywhere.

 

 

 And of course, the ball ended up with the Amazons, now behind my lines in big numbers...

 

 

 Well, at least I knocked out one of his ladies for small comfort as she carried the ball, the one and only KO caused by a stabber in the whole game. 

A whole battle for the ball was held as it scattered, and I had a 50% chance it would land on one of my guys, so the ball fell next to his players.

 

 

 A shame, as I had created an opening on the side, and all it had required was jsut grabbing a scattering ball and we would have had a chance to go for the equalizer.

 

 

The girls picked up the ball, and started moving away from my players.

 

 

In the process, my stabber Dievanons was also seriously injured and would miss next game as well, a bit of a sour loss, perhaps more then the Minotaur, even if they didn't perform this game.

 

 Desperately trying to hold of the crazed bitches off, it looked grim for my defenders, though i must say my Hobgoblins did a better job in blocking this game then my actual blockers.

 

 

 Knowing I couldn't reach him decently, his strength 4 ball carrier waited at the line with the ball.

 

 

 A last moment desperate attempt was undertaken to get to him, but there where to many ladies blocking the routes to get there unfortunatly.

 

 

And while a brave hobgoblin did his best, he was ultimately knocked over and he scored the 2-0.

 

 

 So I had one more turn before the match ended, and lined up to at least massacre the three linewoman in front of me.

 

 

 The kick off table smiled on me, and I could move up players... only to have the very first block come up double skulls, ending it all...

 

 

Well, that went really disastrous, not counting the MVP, which rightly went to that one player that actually had scored points in the game, I managed a single casualty.  The Stabba's, versus armour 8, managed to get through only three times, with 1 KO as a result.  The Flamesmith's only toasted themselves of didn't do anything.  That means my 4 players that could circumvent his dodge around failed miserably.  Add to that I barely got through his armour, failed every receive of a catch or attempt to dodge, and it quickly becomes a terrible game for the team.  

 

 

In every league or campaign, you have that one game where your dice brick-out totally, and I hope this was my turn for that.  I shuffled back to spot 8, but will automatically lose that next week when I'm not having a game.  Hopefully the game in two weeks against the Elven Union will prove the start of the ressurgence, but this unforseen loss will mean I fear I'll have to play for it until the very end to qualify for the play-offs as the points gap starts to grow... 

But on the plusside, I know what to do: get more re-rolls for the team, as just a single one isn't cutting it with all my bandle handle fumbling shennanigans...