The Haul Report 441

 Time for another update on the stuff that has been added to the collection!

 

And we start this week with every gamer's poison: dice!

 

My Belgian TOW Federation dice order arrived, and with some fries this time on the six, to join the ones I have from last year that sported a pint of beer. 

 

My brother in law has finally started printing on my machine, and some terrain pieces have rolled off already, hope he keeps it up... 

 

Talking printed scenery, some additional pieces came through Vinted as well, in order to build up some serious sets for the 2027 event days. 

 

I also grabbed some battlemat carry bags from Green Stuff World, as a massive online group order by the Belgian TOW Federation gave them a huge discounted price and barely any shipping involved. 

 

But with all that TOW talk, I had to pick up the new "1.5" rulebook as well, to try and prepare at least a little bit for september, like reading over the rules or so. 

 

So that's a nice pile of allround utilities, now it's slowly becoming time to prepare for the arrival of Gundam Assemble, so shopping will close down (a little)...

Frostgrave campaign episode 2: The Genie in the Bottle

 After our session last month, we rolled for what we would play this time round so that we had a month to prepare, and it seems Alladin has been to Felstad as well in the past.

 

And for this scenario, I picked up the official genie and lamp figure from Northstar, and painted him up for today. 

 

 

In addition, the level 1 table of the Random Encouters came into play, most figures I had covered though some where sourced from the other players as well.  Once I complete the FULL table, I'll give a look at that.  But we sat down on the friday evening club night, set up the table, and managed to get two games done over the course of the evening, and here is it's tale...

 

Game 1: Zarbag the Illusionist versus Archibald the Sigilist

 

 

In this first game of the evening, Archibald had managed to reanimate his shroom-man apprentice Patje, though the little fungi does seem to carry some memories of the past, resulting in eratic behaviour during the game... and being taken out once more near a well.  Guess a trauma is really the little guy's fate.

 

While Zarbag, who is becoming a mogul powerhouse and the wealthiest wizard this quarter of Frostgrave, goes about securing treasure, he rises fogbanks to prevent Archibald and his dwarfen adventurers to see the goblins going about on their business.   And a profitable business it was indeed, because apart from the necessary gold and scrolls, they also found a grimoire and a magical crossbow that makes hitting targets easier.

  

On the other hand, the biggest thing the dwarfs dig up is a very bad tempered genie.  Luckily for them, ages of being locked away had an impact on it's fighting prowess, and eventually the dwarfs make off relatively unscathed, and with some nice loot.

 

Except for Patje, he has his leg smashed and now suffers from a movement penalty.  It seems he really had been sprouted under a bad moon...

 

Game 2: Zarbag the Illusionist versus The Witch of Balantine

 

 

And the the wealthy goblin crossed the path of the Witch and her band of Red Marsh mercenaries... quikcly raising a couple of fog banks to block all line of sight, the goblins unsuccesfully for the most time tried tossing magical grenades at the thugs and the halfling apprentice.

 

 

Behind this bank, the genie had been discovered, but the Witch had a dastardly plan: together with her henchmen, she pushed the genie through the fog bank, so he would now only see the goblins in return.  

 

 

 

The goblins however replied by doing this as well, (but now we know how pushes actually work, so we'll take that along for next session), and the random moving genie returned to the Witch's side.  While her henchmen tried to decimate the goblins and hold the lumbering giant off, the Witch and her Apprentice leaped to safety and secured the treasure, including a Grimoire of Elemental Ball to be learned after next game.

  

But the greedy goblins once more secured three treasure tokens, and stacked on the gold.  Zarbag the Illusionist, now going by the name of "Donald Zarbag of the Trump Mountains" is building himself quit some wealthy emporium build on the production of magical grenades...

  

And so ends the session for the second round.  We rolled on the scenario we will be playing next time, in which The Witch and Archibald will be facing off first, and that became The Silent Tower.  This means, as the next session is planned on the 25th of september, we have about 1.5 month to prepare the needed tower scenery (which will be a job for Thibaud).

 

Until the next adventure in Felstad! 

 

My Dress-Up Darling volume 11 - Shinichi Fukuda

 Time to read a bit more about the adventures of Gojo and our favorite cosplay heroine, Marin Kitagawa!

 

And so we sat down during the dark hours of night at work, and took up the 11th volume of My Dress-up Darling!

 

And this time, we have misunderstandings at the bottom of the story, as the whole group decides to play out scenes from the Coffin videogame, involving demonic nuns.  During the preperation and planning phase, they get to know some more about each other, and some pick up mistakingly that Marin isn't liked by everyone, which turns out to be a mistake of not overhearing the whole conversation.  

 

And the fact this is of course a happy go-go manga so we are not going to get girl rivalries in the series, which is fine at time for some light reading! 

 

But there is also a problem with JuJu, who is actually considering to stop cosplaying as she starts to get a bit older, and doubting her love for the hobby.  The group convinces her to keep going though none the less and join the group efforts, while some other of the older cosplayers of the team convince her to continue doing what she actually loves.

 

And this all culminates in great pictures of the scenes, before the next project is decided on, a very obscure character who has no animated version, only a few black and white drawings from a single volume, as the writer isn't fond of other mediums...

 

But that will be a story for the next volume, as we approach the final volumes in the series now, it ending with volume 15... 

Frostgrave Genie and the Lamp

 The latest figure to be painted for our group's Frostgrave campaign, the second game night scenario (coming soon) is the Genie scenario.

 

So I scrolled through Vinted and found the actual Northstar Military Miniatures one for a bargain.

 

I set out to paint him and his lamp up as such, in order to have him ready.  Now the benefit is that he is pretty simple to paint up, having basically only his skin and pants, while the lamp is basically a golden lamp on a stone pedestal.

 

Of course, I just needed to paint him blue, because Disney hehehe, but I'm not alone in that as he also is painted blue on the official blister picture.  Though to be honest, he looks more like the evil genie from the turn of the century 1001 Nights mini-series.

 

But, he is ready now and willing to wreck our warbands! 

Yuru Camp Specials

 Taking place after the first season, we get treated to a set of 3 short specials of this loveable anime on the BluRay box.

 

Now, don't expect something to flashy though.

 

These short featurettes go about a few different things.  The first, episode 0 as it is called, is actually taking place before Nadeshiko joins the Outdoor Activities Club at school.  The other two are set in the "current" time of the first season, including a camping trip to Australia that turns in quite an adventure.

 

Running between 5 to 12 minutes for each episode, it was a great little in between as I was getting ready to start watching the second and third seasons at last, and strip off some more completions of my MAL.

 

But now, time to move to the next full season, season 2. 

Into the Under-Ekeren IV Warhammer Underworlds tournament report

 The first weekend of august, and that means it is time for the annual Into the Under-Ekeren Warhammer Underworlds tournament!

 

And apart from a Golden Ticket being on the line, I added some twists to the concept for this edition! 

 

Like allowing Legends warbands for "one last dance" or a special price for the player ending highest with a deck that didn't include Blazing Assault, a Signum model sponsored by Winkel Works (and I wouldn't mind actually winning that one, such a cool figure, should I be required to play).  

 

In the end, we numbered 14 players (excluding myself, so I could start doing a lot of prep work for future events, keep your eyes peeled in the near future - or the end slides in my videos), with players of no less then SIX nationalities.  I doubt I would have classified as a seventh, apparently Zubvobwee isn't a recognised planet.

 

As I said, I had a heap of price support ready (the battlemat on the picture was actually sold off, and replaced by a first edition Starter set), sausage rolls and complementary event dice included in the entry fee (which I tried to keep deliberatly low.

 

And with all the announcements done, it was time to get going for five rounds of Warhammer Underworlds!

 

Now, as I don't have any "battle" stories to tell, I will just say some things about the tournament in general.  The level was rather equal on the top tables, with after three rounds quite a few players being on 2-1, and two taking a lead with 3-0.  

 

Valentin and Joep faced off, and in the end it was Joep who took the win, meaning he needed to consolidate in his final round as Glory Differential is my first tie breaker over Glory Total (to discourage pure aggro showings allround at my events).

 

Now, I must say I was actually quite amazed, as only FOUR players brought a deck with Blazing Assault as part of it.  On the same note, the Legendary edition piece worked, as there where also four warbands from the legends sections: two times Ironskull's Boyz, The Eyes of the Nine and The Chosen Axes.

 

One thing particularly noteworthy was that one of my "bar wenches" (thanks for the helping out guys) noted that for a tournament with a Golden Ticket on the line, there was an awful lot of laughter going on all day.  I guess that shows what a lovely little community has been build for the smallest of small games by Games Workshop.

 

But then onwards to the numbers of the event, and let's start with the painting, as that also gives me a good opportunity to show of some warbands (thanks to Johan for all the individual pictures).  Every judge would cast votes for their first, second and third favorite warband.

 

Out of the 14 + 1 warbands (I took the liberty of at least putting my Blood of the Bull on the table, for one as I had nothing to do as everything ran smoothly, but also that way I could make a nice balanced "3 rows of 5" to display the warbands on the table), 12 warbands received votes.  The jury was made up of the 14 players, myself and then the 4 other members present who where there to play Age of Sigmar as the clubhouse was open anyways.  Points where awarded 5 for a first place band, 3 for a second place and 1 for a third place.

 

Unfortunatly, the three players that didn't receive any votes where Joep (Jaws of Itzl), Cyril (Starblood Stalkers) and Quint (The Emberwatch).

 

In 12th place, with 3 points (1x 2nd), Simon with Rippa's Snarlfangs

In 11th place, with 4 points (1x 2nd, 1x 3rd) Neo with Ironskulls Boyz

 

In shared 9th place, with 5 points, (both 1x 2nd and 2x 3rd) where Valentin with Ironskulls Boyz and Johan with The Shadeborn

In 8th place, also with 5 points (1x 1st) was Wouter with The Chosen Axes 

In 7th place, with 10 points (2x 1st) was Luba with Thorns of the Briar Queen

 

In 6th place, with 11 points (2x 1st, 1x 3rd) was your loveable TO with Blood of the Bull.  They where all warned in front, if I would have 0 points, I would blame them all for not appreciating the effort running the event!!!!

 

In shared 4th place, both with 12 points (both 4x 2nd) where Peter with Starblood Stalkers and Wesley with The Crimson Court

 

In third place, with 16 points (1x 1st, 3x 2nd, 5x 3rd) was Michael with Ylthari's Guardians

 

In second place, with 30 points (4x 1st, 2x 2nd, 4x 3rd) was Nico with Eyes of the Nine

 

But winning best painted by a landslide of 55 points, due to the level being so high a lot of the bands "stole" points from each other, but this one kept scoring consistently - receiving 15 times a vote out of 19 casts - (9x 1st, 2x 2nd, 4x 3rd) was Wim with Thanatek's Tithe.

 

And that meant after the painting scores where announced, it was time to get to the piece de la piece.  So here is the full results of the tournament, including warband, deck and points!

 

1. Joep Nijssen - Jaws of Itzl - RR / CtC - 4/1 - 84 Glory, + 29

2. Valentin Hornik - Ironskulls Boyz - BA / DS - 4/1 - 89 Glory, +28

3. Cyril Deneux - Starblood Stalkers - ES / PP - 4/1 - 97 Glory, +27

 

4. Luba K - Thorns of the Briar Queen - DS / EoK - 3/2 - 74 Glory, +23

 

 

5. Michael Kislyi - Ylthari's Guardians - CtC / WR - 3/2 - 74 Glory, +11

 

6. Wim Bellemans - Thanatek's Tithe - CtC / PP - 3/2 - 69 Glory, +10

7. Neo Hornik - Ironskulls Boyz - BA / DS - 3/2 - 73 Glory, +4

8. Quint Van Druten - The Emberwatch - PP / RF - 2/3 - 84 Glory, + 9

9. Nico Van den Winckel - The Eyes of the Nine - WR / PP - 2/3 - 71 Glory, -2

10. Simon Conticello - Rippa's Snarlfangs - RF / DS - 2/3 - 68 Glory, -3

 

 

11. Johan De Ryck - The Shadeborn - BA / RS - 2/3 - 68 Glory, -15

12. Peter Vanden Bossche - Starblood Stalkers - ES / PP - 2/3 - 47 Glory, -25

 

11. Wouter Beckers - The Chosen Axes - DS / HG - 1/4 - 53 Glory, -23

12. Wesley De Vos - The Crimson Court - BA / CtC - 0/5 - 34 Glory, -73

 

That meant that for the special prices, Wesley took the set of Faction Death dice for scoring the least amount of glory points during the day, Valentin took the Dreadfane box for ending highest with a Legends warband and Joep grabbed the 3d printed model for highest ranking warband not playing Blazing Assault.  

 

And so it came to an end.  I think everyone had a good time, from experienced tournament winners to a guy that played like his first game ever, after he had driven 16 hours back home from holidays... guess 3 weeks with wife and kids was enough for him.

 

What will the future bring?  No matter how Underworlds progresses, wether or not it keeps existing, there will be a new edition next year, but more on that in due time!