Mortal Kombat II

 Time for some good gory entertainment on a saturday night with the classic of classic franchises: Mortal Kombat.

 

Now, I liked the previous film, and now at last Johnny Cage (yeah, I always played him when able) has arrived.

 

The downside, it still features that "superhero out of nowhere" from the first film, Cole Young, ugh. The story begins with a flashback of how Shao Khan took over Edenia, and now Earthrealm is one defeat away from suffering the same fate.  Raiden and his champions (Cole Young, Liu Kang, Jax and Sonya Blade) are looking to recruit a fifth champion, and Johnny Cage, a washed up actor, is chosen.  Now to be honest, I liked the Linden Ashby version of the 90s movie better.  Nothing against Karl Urban, he is a fantastic actor and I loved him both as Eomer as well as as Bones McCoy, but he just feels to old to play "the game version of our national hero JCVD".  Yeah, that's an actual fact btw that Johnny Cage was based on Jean-Claude Van Damme.

 

Now, Johnny does add some great lines to the film for sure (like "your spooky halloween horror babies" when talking to Baraka about the inhabitants of his village) and while adding comedy also brings in some nice action scenes, even though he feels out of the water most of the time compared to the others powers.  

 

But the movie delivers all what you expect: intense battle scenes and goy fatalities, and yeah, I was kind of happy when Cole's head was pulverised, though suprised Liu Kang falls.  Though this might set him up for a possible third movie and him becoming the fire god champion of the later games as a result.  Kano as well was hilarious, chosing "jack and coke" over the Outerworld lifestyle, and plans are made to bring back the fallen champions after Shao Khan is defeated in the end.

 

This is just what you like to see at times, good fun entertainment without to much thought, visual spectacles and of course that age-less "Mortal Kombaaaaaaaaat" soundtrack. 

Daggers Inn

 So, a british movie styled after Knives Out, which are enjoyable mystery flicks.

 

The question though, is this film as enjoyable?

 

Well, the jury is out on that.  I actually found it okay, Noshi found it totally rubbish.  And it seems the critics are in her camp as well.  The movie is about a pretty but strange woman arriving in a town "strangleheld" by the local wealthy law firm.  She is there to investigate the murder of her sister, and get revenge on who did it.

 

The woman has strange powers of suggestion, seemingly able to influence the mind of others.  And a bad mannered young partner in the law firm that offends everyone on every turn.  The rest are side characters that appear for no reason and whose actual roles are weird at times, the film feeling like a stageplay by an amateur company put on film.  And that somehow makes it incredibly fascinating, as you just want to see how it will play out, what weird director's desicions are made, and who will overact next.

 

So did I feel like I wasted about 1.5 hours of my life watching this?  Yes, because it is a bad movie, but also no, because it has that charm that just grips you and keeps you watching.  A true oddity!

 

And no answers on where she got her powers from... 

Stumblefoot Giant Regiment of Renown

 Time for another unit to be added to my Chaos Dwarfs forces, and it is a Regiment of Renown this time.

 

Because why risk harm if you can hire big muscle instead...

 

Now, in that one game of Age of Sigmar I ever played so far, with my Idoneth, I enjoyed the hilarious drunken shennanigans of this boy so much, I just needed to have one for my Chaos Dwarfs as well.  So grabbing another one from a set of Sons of Behemat gargants, I painted this one up in an ashen gray colour scheme, to show a bit of the area where he hauls from... the dark plains surrounding the mighty ziggurats. 

Now to get back to painting some more guns, in all sizes, for the force...

 

 

Age of Fantasy Skirmish 250 points Havoc Dwarfs vs Wood Elves

 The joy of a chill game in not so chill weather, I went to a friend today who wanted to try out some things for One Page Rules skirmish.

 

Namely to play 250 points on an area the size of two Spearhead boards, and the Twists and Gambits cards.

 

So the Havoc Dwarfs mustered their 250 points forces, and went to battle.  Now I'm not going to type out a batte report, per se, as it was more of a try things session, and lovely old school with cardboard pieces for terrain (he told me to late he didn't have any or I would have brought terrain along) and Stormcast Eternals serving as Wood Elves.

 

The rounds went pretty evenly, the score tally was 8-8, 14-17, 24-22, 41-24.  That last thing might seem like an incredible jump, but this was due to the fact I had been playing on his morale the whole game by dwindling down the 3 man units to a single one, then striking hard in turn 3 to eliminate 4 units in one go with multiple attacks.

 

 

Add some bad dice rolling on his part, causing his whole force bar the treeman brute in my deployment to become Shaken (which was then duly done in the beginning of round 4, and to add insult to injury the treeman ran off at the end), meaning he couldn't go and contest anything.

 

The Havoc Dwarfs as a result grabbed 4 out of the 5 objectives in the final turn, scored the twist, scored their Gambit, and as such went on a big score round while he could only hold a single objective with the last remaining elf, his general. 

 

But it was a great game, and it could have gone either way for a long time.  But the Bull Father smiled down on the forces of Hashut, who had lost only two measly cultists over the course of the battle. 

 

So, guess I'll be painting up this model to represent his force now in my trophy unit... 

Lord Ipsqueeck's Adventures: Efteling 2026

 Hello followers, here I am again for the annual trip to De Efteling in the Netherlands, daddy's preferred "brithday outing".

 

So once again, we stayed overnight, but this year it was really hot, never the less I managed to keep the old folks cooled off.

 

Sadly not by being allowed to swim in the big central lake, though some apparently tried this, only to be plukced out by park security in a spectacular style. 

 

But taking my responsibilities, I often put mommy and daddy through Carnival Festival, that awesome dark ride with such lovely music and good atmosphere. 

 

Back outside, we could then immediatly jump into Sirocco, sailing through the storm together with my friend Sindbad and enjoying the breeze that it creates. 

 

After that, we made our way to Droomvlucht, by passing along the big lane with all the lovely shadow casting trees and that great architecture daddy loves so much. 

 

And then we entered the lovely world of dreams, with trolls and fairies in this spectacular overhanging dark ride. Though it seems mommy saw a very ugly troll overthere...

 

We entered the Fairy Tale Forest for a small bit, through the new Jagerspoort. 

 

As it was time to sit down and have our sandwiches for lunch, and strengthen our inner person for the second part of the day. 

 

We picked up the new Jokie and Jet show outside Carnival Festival as we came there (as I needed to bring them in for a second ride of the day, for freshness sake you know), who performed dancing songs from their airballoon. 

 

From there, we went to the Land van Laaf, another lovely themed area that also has a lot of shade, and some fun houses with lovely animatronic displays and a movie of how the Laaf arrived in Efteling. 

 

Mommy and daddy then finally went to do Dance Maccabre, as last year the lines where still to immense.  Though it must be said, it was rather calm in the parc over the whole weekend, no exhubirant waiting lines (apart from the Piranha water ride) actually, some hit the 40 minute mark (Baron 1898 and Droomvlucht come to mind), but on average it was 5 to 20 minutes even for coasters like Max and Moritz or the Python. 

 

After another cut through of Fairy Tale Forest and it's iconic musical mushrooms, it was time for another dark ride to be ridden.

 

And that of course is the Symbolica, the trackless ride with so many awesome scenes in it. 

 

And after another Carnaval Festival, it was time to return to the hotel room, as we stayed in the Wonder Hotel once again and call it a night.  And boy did I sleep like a brick! 

 

The second day kicked off with the traditional waiting in Het Kleuterhof, where I could do some little slides, as well as meeting another boy with whom I tried out the appleswing. 

 

Before of course going to the traditional opener of Carnaval Festival, wieeeejjj tatatataaatatataaaa.

 

After that, we went to do Droomvlucht again, before the big masses could enter the park. 

 

I told mommy how much fun I have been having so far, and then we moved on to the next rides. 

 

Which was the monorail in the Land van Laaf! 

 

And another spin in the Sirocco, I keep loving that disco style flatride a lot.

 

Mommy then went to explore her wild side, jumping into the Python for some quadrupple overhead speeding. 

 

Being the attentive little man that I am, I knew they both must be getting tired, so I took them for some driving around the Oude Tufferbaan instead. 

 

As we started to round out our second day after some more rides like the Gondoletta, daddy decided to grab a soft icecream for some cool down. 

 

*Kuch* I think not old man! 

 

But I made it up to him by taking him one last time for this visit in the Carnaval Festival, before we undertook the ride home and grab some fries at grandma's!

 

So that was another great fun visit to De Efteling, and I will already be back next week with more adventures, as I'm leaving on my next holidays tomorrow, including a visit to Bobbejaanland!

 

See you then!