The 2026 Goals: the halfway mark

 Aaaah, June has gone by, and that means reflecting on how the goals have gone after the second quarter...

 

And the moment you realise you really will need to focus a bit more to get things actually done!

 

While I have been making serious progress and painted up quite a lot, watched and read... it also shows there is still a long way to go to get everything I had aimed for finished.  While I had already completed two goals pretty fast in the first quarter of the year, with the obtainment of a Golden Ticket and the completion of a 5 points Raid force for A Call to Arms, some have been pushed close to obtaining in this second quarter as well.  So that's the good thing for sure, but on the other hand, some aren't proceeding as well... or not at all.

 

The first goal we obtained in this quarter is the viewings of at least 20 series, which now stands at 21 completed ones, so good going there.  But that is the only goal effectively obtained in this second quarter of the year, making it 3 finished of the 23 I had set out in january.  Or not, but for that, read on below, as things happened!  Now, some are getting close to completing as well, so okay for that: the Play 50 games of Warhammer Underworlds are now at 45, so that will be certainly obtained, and the movies to watch are also over the halfway mark at 13.

 

But that's the current status of soon to obtain goals, for the other ones, more effort will be required and as I keep being sidetracked by for example trying to get 2k of Halsmiths painted up for a tournament at the club the 22nd of november, or the whole Frostgrave Random Encounter project.  Because butterfly...

 

Painting all my remaining Underworlds warbands is completed, but for reasons, with all 3 out of 3 finished.  Now what happened here is that I finally finished my Chaos Dwarf warband, and as I will take them to Worlds in december will be playing them and them only in the remainder of the year until then.  But as with all my Chaos Dwarf games, if I win something, I'll be adding a model of that range, painted in a copy of my opponents colourscheme, to the "trophy unit", so all the unpainted warbands went into my "just for that purpose" box.  If they are succesful, I might be forced more to buy more warbands for the bits, but we'll see first if I get their engine running.

 

No idea though when I'll get round to both painting the 500th Anniversary White Dwarf or Thorin's Company though, which is still at 2 out of 15 members painted at the moment.  One thing I can say for sure is that I won't finish that 2500 points Idoneth army, as I keep painting my beloved Chaos Dwarfs instead for Age of Sigmar and they are on the verge of surpassing my painted Idoneth already, because motivations. 

 

Having a look at the other Underworlds goals, I'm at 1 out of 3 event wins, and haven't yet manage to win something with Hrothgorn, who just doesn't cut it with his to weak gnoblars.  Getting to the World Championships itself is a goal only obtainable in december, so that's fine, as is trying to retain first place on T3. 

 

Now, there are two paint goals that still don't look spectacular, but will in all probability still be obtained, as I expect a serious surge for them in the coming second half of the year paint line: painting 50 spaceships, currently at 17 out of 50, but we got that train rolling again at the club thanks to OPR, and get my Lothlorien army done before october which now stands at 99 / 500 points. 

 

Another set of goals that will get a serious surge traditionally in the second half of the year, especially with the summer vacation coming up, are firstly visiting 10 parks on Coaster Cloud, at the moment at 6 out of 10 but even as soon as in 2 weeks the park trips commence with the little man.  Which will also mean that 't Smidje collection of pins will get some additions to their curren 10 out of 36 completion.  And warm weather means cold beer, so that rate of 27 out of 50 will definitly go up as well!  As might the frituurs when we are out on holidays...

 

But there are also goals that will require serious focussing if I want to hit the marks!  The first of those being to finish 50 anime which is now at 15, or read 10 manga or 10 books, things that due to circumstances have been lingering.  Then again, once we hit the holiday period, these traditionally get boosted as well, but I can't say if it will be enough to break the goal targets! 

 

There we have it, an oversight as how the goals are going right now, and what still needs to be done.  Bottomline is that we didn't hit ANY targets in this second quarter, and can be certain of dropping one for sure as it won't materialise at all.  Never the less, we will keep going at it, and hopefully next time, quite a few "green markers" will have materialised on the list...

 

See you in september! 

Avatar: Fire and Ash

 So, the third instalment in the Avatar movie franchise, and bigger then before...

 

... which is why I didn't like it.

 

You see, I find these movies all carbon copies of one another, except the setting always gets bigger, but the story and story sequence remains identical.  Calm life is disturbed, natives gather and infiltrate, humans get revenge.  Then they gather a bigger force to withstand the humans, are pushed back with some personal loss of a side character, and the world awakens to bring all the wildlife to battle and beat the humans.  

 

The difference is that going from movie to movie we had a skrimish with a raiding force, a battle around a ship and now confronting a whole fleet.  But you can put the above over each of them, and it clicks solid into place like an overlay.  The first movie was awesome, because all new and stuff, but the two that came after, meh.   

 

 The story is basically the mourning Sully family, after losing their son in the second film, and Spider who stays with them but is bound to wearing masks to breathe.  He must return to the humans to survive, even though he doesn't want to.  Add in an aggressive fire clan, the Mangkwan led by Varang, and an attack leads to Kiri infusing Spider with fungi, resulting in him to be able to breath Pandora air... and making him a prime research target.

 

Jake on the other hand is captured and scheduled for execution while the RDA wants to find out what causes Spider to breathe exactly.  As they escape, the RDA mobilises en masse, resulting in the Na'Vi gathering their forces as well and a huge battle ensues.

 

In the end, the Na'Vi are succesfull, Quaritch sacrificing himself to save Spider and leaving him in the custody of Jake, as Spider is inducted in the Na'Vi spirit tree world.

 

So yeah, big blockbuster, fantastic special effects, but as I said above, nothing new.  Just bigger, and for that not necessarily better.  There is talks there are more parts still to come, but give it a few years time to create a new hype, because like so many theatre franchises it is suffering from the streaming competition.

 

It was fun, but for me, the stress in that sentence is on "was"... 

The trophies of Crypts of Halle V

 A while ago, I joined in the Crypts of Halle V tournament for Warhammer Underworlds, debuting the Blood of the Bull warband of Dawi'Zharr.

 

And that also meant that for every game I would win, a model would be painted up in my opponents colour scheme to go into the trophy unit of slaves from my collection.

 

Now during the event, I came third, managing to win 3 out of the 5 games I played.  The result was that I needed to scrummage through my bits boxes for three suitable models (I'm NOT buying a gazillion Underworlds bands for this!) to represent the races that where defeated by the sons and daughters of the Dark Father,   And that meant a grot, a nighthaunt and a skeleton.

 

The first victory came against Thibaud's and his Looncourt, which is a force of grots and where painted in a yellow colourscheme.  I dug up as such a gitz snuffler from the Age of Sigmar range to represent this as such, with a squig to also copy that scheme.

 

The second victory came across The Headsmen's Curse of Johan, who are a group of nighthaunt, sporting a spookly green skintone and dirty grey white "clothing".  The model as such is a chainrasp from the Nighthaunt range.

 

The final addition to the conquered where the Sons of Velmorn of Wouter, and these armoured skeletons had a purple and blue clothing on a dark metal and a skeleton complexion.  To represent this, I took a Reaper Bones model, a Barrow Warden.

 

So there we have them, some models to represent the thunderous march of the Chaos Dwarfs into the fields of Underworlds.

 

May many join the enslaved ranks for Hashut! 

Babylon 5 Thetys Cutter

 The tiny Thetys Cutter, mainstay of my Babylon 5 (Early) Earth Alliance fleets ever since Mongoose Publishing released A Call to Arms decades ago.

 

Is it because it was so good?  No, not at all, fragile, tiny and slow like most of the EA "flying bricks in space".

 

But it is such a nice and elegant model (as far as said bricks go) and I always caught a fancy for them.  Gamewise they had their uses as an initiative sink and usually a one shot gun (slowloading beam or missile rack to the front) before going down in a ball of fire, but if you brought enough missiles, they might actually take something along with them.

 

So I (re)painted another one of them I came across in my heaps, the 5th so far (ideally though, you pair them in two's for a single Patrol point, so some more digging up soon is required, I should have about 12 of these ships) of the refreshed Babylon 5 fleet.

 

Guess next thing on the menu is tackling the heaps of fighters the EA always has around, so off we go to the paint desk again! 

Star Trek Federation Type F shuttlecraft

 The latest vessels to leave my drydock, it's a wing of three shuttlecraft.

 

The Type F, which became famous for the Gallileo in TOS...

 

These shuttles, produced by Studio Bergstrom and cast in metal, are about 1.5cm in length.  I based them on standard 25mm round bases, to represent a wing of bombers of the other heavier fighter types to be used in rulesets like Warfleets by One Page Rules.

 

Cleanly cast, these where quit fun to paint up actually, not taking hours or such, though the fine windows and buzzard collectors where a bit more of a tussle, but I think they worked out in the end.

 

Now to get some capital ships lined up for painting... 

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Freedom

 Finally I could watch the newest Gundam movie that came out end of january, and went to break some anime related box office records in Japan.

So time to sit back and enjoy more Kira, Athrun, the Freedom gundam and of course, LUNAMARIA HAWKE.

Taking place a few years after the events of SEED Destiny, Lacus has founded COMPASS, an organisation tasked with opposing independant resistance groups, Blue Cosmos, and other threats.  Kira and his friends intervene on their behalf as the armed force of the organisation, with updated Gundams and mobile suits at their disposal.  

And it immediatly begins with an intervention against Blue Cosmos, showing that Shinn and Kira now work together.  And Shinn now pilots the Justice of Athrun btw.  Now, while they try desperatly to stop all fighting, a new faction Foundation, is coming to the fore.  Originally followers of the Destiny plan, they want to open to the world but secretly plot to still impose the plan.  Genetically enhanced even beyond Coordinators, they reveal Lacus is actually one of them, and set a plan in motion to frame Kira for starting a war.  

 

COMPASS is soundly beaten, losing the Archangel and their mobile suits in the process, only to be saved at the last minute by Athrun and Orb.  They start forming a plan to stop Foundation, whom use Requiem, a giant orbital cannon, to annihilate Moscow, capital of Eurasia as a so called revenge for the faked nuclear attack they orchestrated to start the war.  Kira and his friends receive a gift from Orb, new and updated versions of the Strike Freedom, Destiny and Impulse for him, Shinn and LunaMaria.  They head into space aboard the Millenium, as their former friends and allies start to gather and the plan to liberate the world is set in motion.

 

In a gigantic (and awesome!!!) space battle, the heroes manage to break through the lines and Shinn destroys the Requiem array moments before it can fire on Orb, as Kira and Lacus confront the enemy and overcome them thanks to the newly formed Mighty Strike Freedom, an evolution of the Strike Freedom and a utility pack piloted by Lacus herself.

 

The movie is a great continuation of the Seed Destiny series, tying up a lot of loose ends while setting the stage for the next instalment (SEED Destiny Freedom).  It pays both hommage to the series with a lot of returning characters and mobile suits (even the Buster woohoo) while moving the story along with new equipment like the Millenium, whom replaces the destroyed Archangel as the main vessel they operate from.

 

I really enjoyed the whole film from the first to the final second, and considering it runs for 2 hours, that's a very, very good thing, even though I might have a bit of a personal bias as for me Seed has always been my favorite entry in the franchise... 

Crypts of Halle V Warhammer Underworlds tournament report

 Well, today I had to make a choice, as there where TWO Warhammer Underworlds events on the same day...

 

On the one hand, there was the Benelux Clash V in Den Haag, and then there was Crypts of Halle V in Halle.

  

Now, as the title tells, you can see what I picked to attend... but the reasons herefore where that I had my Golden Ticket anyways already and that the TO of Halle, Johan, is a rock in our flemish community and one I consider a friend.  Finally, Halle is 100km less of a drive.  Gas prices and stuff you know...

  

Now, this tournament is the first time organised at this venue, a basement of an actual church, and then it became a matter of which warband to take along.  My Shadeborn to do a throw to the crown?  Elathain for a sure bet at the price support?  Or something completely different?  No, I opted to finally start doing what I said I would do, burn down the Underworlds as I bring the Dawi'Zharr of The Blood of the Bull finally to the table.  Finished only two days before the event, and featured here a few days ago, they went out for the first time.  I took an "extreme" deck with me containing no less then 20 glory, Pillage and Plunder / Emberstone Sentinels with no ambition to go on the offensive and only do a single tippytoe into enemy territory.  The plan is to stay on my half and do my thing, hopefully outscoring others that way.  And it would be the first "get used to the warband" outing as I will take them to the Worlds, because the word of Hashut has to be spread where able after all!

 

What's even more, as a lover of narrative gaming, I donated a small price to be handed out to the highest classified faction Death warband in the final rankings.  Talking price support, there was a very lovely pool, sponsored by Top1Toys in Halle, as well as some free bases and a printed model from Signum Games, the latter to be handed out to the person unfortunatly to end in the last place, donated by Nico from WinckelWorks.

 

And so gathered in the crypt of the church, a very lovely and light venue, with a bar.  We where with 10 players in the end, and the pairings where drawn up to start the conquest of the churchgrounds, and desolate them for the Dark Father!

 

My first round paired me against Thibaud, who played the Looncourt with a deck combination of Emberstone Sentinels and Nexus of Power.  

 

The goblins immediatly took to the fore, but my armour kept me out of harm's way for the most part, and the Dawi'Zharr started to score passively.  While only a single point of difference within the first two rounds, as he had used up all his push and guard tech going into round 3, while I was saving those up, a landslide of glory came my way and the result was a 22-14 victory for the opener today.

 

This brough me to the second game against the Tournament Organiser and reserve player, Johan, with his Headsmen's Curse, running the Blazing Assault and Deadly Synergy deck combination, something that proved a strong showing in previous events this year so far.

 

But he flunked some attack rolls, my armour remained largely undented, and I could quickly take down the Headsman himself.  While Grisk was running havoc in his backlines after appearing there through Hidden Paths (the little bugger scored 6 glory on his own!) the rest kept the ghosts in check, I even only played 2 ploys and 2 upgrades over the whole game, grabbing a 25-6 victory.

 

It was time for lunchbreak then as Thai food was delivered, and the voting of the Best Painted warband.  The paint level this edition was immense, and I included a little video of it right here at the end to have a look for yourself.  I also want to thank the person who gave me that one point here...

 

But then it was time for round three, and I went up against the also undefeated Wim and his Kurnoth's Heralds, and lo and behold, there was Blazing Assault with Countdown to Cataclysm!

 

Now, after Maastricht I had a serious disliking for that combo, but also worked around it in my deck.  Truth to be told, while I lost the game 12 to 24 after being tabled in round 3, it wasn't that one-sided at all.  Wim got priority on all three rounds, and this saved him in round 2 and 3 from either losing the big axe guy, or his leader, as he could strike first with his to many dice 3 damage fighters, and i don't start those subsequent rounds with daemonforge dice.  Had I gained priority, he would have lost a fighter for certain, and the game would have swung the other way, so it was a nice and tense affair with some intresting positioning.

 

That as such brought us to the fourth game, and now I faced Wouter and the Sons of Velmorn, running Deadly Synergies and Hunting Grounds.  So if I kept mostly to my half of the board, his deck would be seriously hampered...

 

Which I did for the most part, and that paid dividends.  The Sons hit hard and have excellent defence, but for the most part I tried to avoid them to score my passive glory cards.  While I lost more models then him, I took away a fairly straightforward 20-11 victory in this round.

 

So somehow, I was still vaguely in the running for the top spot, standing at 3-1 just as Nico, my next opponent, while Wim was at 4-0 at that moment (he would win his final game as well, taking home the win).  But Nico had the one warband I really feared (had I not have my Chaos Dwarfs finished, I would have brought those as well) with The Exiled Dead, running Wrack and Ruin with Countdown to Cataclysm.

 

And the zombie horde did swarm me indeed, as I lost no less then three models in the first round, and it looked like a crushing deafeat was coming.  Yet somehow Imnidrin went above the call of duty. and refused to go down as the sole survivor, still scoring a nice amount of glory in the end.  As a result, I went down 13-18, but more then against the Kurnoth I never had the feeling I stood a real chance in this game.

 

That left me at 3-2 in the end, but the amount of scored glory was the first tiebreaker, and as such I went onto the podium with a 3rd placing.  Not to bad for a warband I never played before and a deck I never tried out, learning the flow of it on the spot during the event.  

 

The tournament ended with the following ranking as a result after a day of battling it out in the churchgrounds:

 

1. Wim - Kurnoth's Heralds: 5-0, 98 scored glory

 

2. Nico - The Exiled Dead: 4-1, 80 scored glory

3. Tomsche - Blood of the Bull: 3-2, 92 scored glory

 

4. Thibaud - Grinkrank's Looncourt: 3-2, 76 scored glory

5. Gert - The Crimson Court: 3-2, 67 scored glory

6. Nicolas - Ylthari's Guardians: 2-3, 72 scored glory

7. Johan - The Headsmen's Curse: 2-3, 68 scored glory

8. Wouter - Sons of Velmorn: 2-3, 65 scored glory

9. Peter - Thanatek's Tithe: 1-4, 66 scored glory

 

10. Lars - The Headsmen's Curse: 1-4, 54 scored glory

  

Best painted was won by Nico with his The Exiled Dead, but it was a very close affair, with no less then 4 warbands ending within a breath of each other as the level, as I said, was incredibly high.

 

But, the day closed down, and I stayed behind to help Johan clean-up and get the materials to his house afterwards, but nit before we took some "healthy" food to recuperate from the day.

 

Did I like the way the Blood of the Bull played?  Certainly, though there might be some minor tweaks I want to do to the deck, perhaps switching out one or two surges, as well as perhaps a single ploy, but I'm not entirely sure I would want to do it.  The problem is, if the cards come in a good flow like in game 2, these get me about 5 to 6 easy glory, but if they come to far apart they are dead cards in hand.  It's a thing I'll need to look in over time, first I'm going to try out some other combinations with them until I find a good middle ground I guess between passive and aggressive, as I like having multiple possible angles of play to keep my opponent on his toes.

 

But now, to go and find some models to add to the trophy ranks after this tournament, and the conquests of the Dawi'Zharr! 

 

 

The Burning of the Underworlds starts now!

 And finally they are done!

 

My Chaos Dwarfs are ready to burn all before them on the fields of Underworlds, like I announced in a small clip last year, but well, you need to paint them as well of course.

 

But as that horde has been taken, the warband that will be going with me to Barcelona for the World Championships is ready for action.  Which of course brought me to the deck I need for them.  My "feeling" on how everyone says you basically need to take Pillage and Plunder for them, is that you don't want them to go on the offensive per se, because of your stagger status.  

 

I brewed over half a dozen potential decks for them, and will be using the coming half year to try out as many of those as possible, on the look-out for something that "glues" perfectly and I enjoy playing (which typically is infiltration aggro).  At the moment I'm a bit torn between combinations, both requiring an aggressive play only on my half of the board.  Okat, it all depends a bit on the placing of the treasure tokens, but you get the idea.  

 

The reason for this is that way I don't really need to focus on the other half of the board, but just "be tanky", wether any intial aggro storms and hopefully outscore my opponent with doing my thing on my half of the board.  The risk in that however is a bad card draw for objectives that might cause a bit of a stalling in the scoring curve.

 

But now that they are ready, this will be the ONLY warband I will be playing for the remainder of the year, to get a perfect feel for piloting the band and warscroll itself, and then search for a good connected deck.

 

And of course, if we win games, a trophy will be added to my Chaos Dwarf slave unit, so Vinted shopping might be happening.  Frequently, if all goes well...

 

Hail Hashut! 

Spaceman

 The latest movie I have been watching, this is a science-fiction drama, produced by Netflix and based on the book Spaceman of Bohemia.

 

And Adam Sandler is actually doing a good "serious" performance in this film...

 

The story is about a czech astronaut who is investigating a strange spacecloud that has appeared behind Jupiter.  But isolation takes his toll, and soon he sees a strange spacespider that telepathically talks to him.  He misses his wife, who actually wants to leave him as he is to focussed on his career, but this information is withheld from him for his sanity by mission command.

 

The spider however is real, and called Hanus by him, the last of his species and who wishes to understand humanity.  When he learns how Jakub lived his life, he is disappointed and leaves, leaving Jakub distressed.  When he asks forgiveness from his wife, Hanus returns and tells him his entire species was wiped out by a parasitic infection, and he wants to go to the cloud to die as time exists simultaneously there.  In the cloud, Jakub concludes he just wants to live his life with his wife, before being rescued, as hanus passes away from his infection.

 

This was actually a really good movie.  Don't expect flashy space action, but a great story and good filmatographic experience on self-reflection.  Truly enjoying this movie, and as I said at the beginning a great toned down performance from Adam Sandler, makes it one of those films that gets you thinking and reflecting yourself.

 

Definitly one of the hidden gems Netflix produced over the years, so it is well worth to go and check it out!