Studio Bergstrom Battlestar Galactica

 In between all the Frostgrave and Chaos Dwarf painting, one must do some other things in between to keep his sanity.

 

And to that end, I painted up the Battlestar Galactica.

 

This metal model, about the length of a Hyperion from Babylon 5 A Call to Arms range, is produced by american company Studio Bergstrom.  Andrew has a nice range of models (and some more will be ordered pretty soon, as he made an upgraded Pegasus) at prices that make the import taxes feasible.  That is after all something he can do nothing about, so a choice we all must make for ourselves.

 

Now to get to the paint desk and line up some Vipers to go with the venerable ship, in order to bring the Galactica to some games of One Page Rules in the future.

 

Galactica actual... JUMP! 

The Haul Report 439

 Happy birthday to meeeeee, as that day to remind me it has been even longer since I was 20 has passed by in this period.

 

And the shirt that will carry me to glory at the Worlds in Barcelona has arrived, a gift from my dear Noshi!

 

Well, not glory, but at least the Glorious Word of Hashut will be carried forward!!! 

Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match

 Sometimes all you need on a rainy saturday afternoon is some good violent animated fun.

 

And what is more gory, violent and hilariously over the top then Mortal Kombat?

 

From the animated Legends series, comes Cage Match, which follows the adventures of our beloved movie star Johnny Cage.  In this movie, Johnny, still a C-list actor at that point, tries to save his co-star Jennifer Grey (voiced by herself) from a secret society plotting the destruction of Earthrealm.  He unknowingly becomes involved in one of the conflicts between a protector of Earthrealm, Ashrah, who was send by Lord Raiden, and Kia, a demonic follower of Shinnok.  Johnny kills the later hilariously with a tour bus he hijacked by the way...

 

It soon turns out there might be more to it all then a simple kidnapping, and he decides to infiltrate the Magical Mansion for a gathering, where he and Ashrah are attacked by Jataaka, the second of three assassins send to Earthrealm by Shinnok, with Jennifer actually being the final one.  As Cage possesses the blood of Gods, they want to sacrifice him, but he escapes.  Unfortunatly, enough of his blood had been spilled, bringing Shinnok into our world, and Johnny needs to face him.  He unleashes his inner mystical powers, and manages to banish Shinnok back to Netherrealm.  His career soares and declines, but is then seen packing up to go make a new film on a remote island...

 

This was so much fun in a simple way.  The humour is great, the animation is okay and the gory deaths are just that what MK is all about: sheer insane over the top violent fun.  

 

Definitly worth the watch! 

Helsmiths of Hashut Dominator Engine with Immolation Cannon

 The next unit painted for my Helsmiths of Hashut force, and my entry for the most recent Artisan Contest on Chaos Dwarfs Online.

 

And as the theme is "war machines" for this round, this was a suitable candidate. 

 

Of course, it was painted in the same colours as my whole force, but I changed the gold and blue around, making the first now the dominant colour.  That way, it gives more of a mechanical look to it.

 

As I'm not a fan of the greenish demonic fires GW uses on their models, I opted for regular flames instead, which also goes nicely with the colourscheme after all, tying it well together.

 

While not my favorite model of the re-envisaged line for the Chaos Dwarfs, it is a lovely lumbering brute to put along your lines of warriors and missile troops for certain.

 

And another step closer to bringing them to the battlefield! 

Babylon 5 Delphi Advanced Scout

 A fresh vessel of the paint desk for my Earth Alliance fleet, this one is from the Crusade era section.

 

Basically, the advanced ships post the television series.

 

The Delphi scout is a far more advanced, better armed and better armoured scout vessel to replace the aging Oracle from the earlier two era lists.  And comes in the dark grey and black colour scheme instead of the grey and blue of the earlier lists.

 

As an added bonus, it also has a hangar bay in the A Call to Arms ruleset that carries a single flight of the excellent Aurora starfury, probably the best fighter ingame after the Minbari fighter.

 

The model itself, made by Agents of Gaming for Mongoose Publishing back in the day, is cast in metal, and about 7cm in length, so not really a big ship.  It's length comes close to the Hyperion cruiser, but it is far, far less bulkier then the old workhorse of the fleet.

 

But a sleek looking stealth ship and a nice addition to the revamped fleet so far. 

Kiki's Delivery Service

 One of the few Studio Ghibli movies I somehow hadn't watched before, as it would unlock a special badge on MAL for summer viewing, I sat down behind Netflix and watched it with Thorin on a lazy saturday afternoon.

 

You know, those daddy / son moments that are just enjoyable, slouching against each other and watching a colourful movie. 

 

Made all the way back in 1989, based on a 1985 novel.  The story revolves around Kiki, who has come at the age of 13, meaning she will set out into the world as a witch to learn responsibilities and taking care of herself during a year of training.  Together with her black cat Jiji, she travels to a big city near the ocean.  here she finds lodgings at a bakery, and starts a magical delivery service from there.  

 

She befriends other people, like Tombo and Ursula, as well as an elderly lady during these courier routes, but when Kiki becomes depressed she can no longer understand Jiji and loses her ability to fly.  During a weekend stay with Ursula, Ursula deducts she has the equivalent of artist's block and advises her to get a fresh purpose to open her powers again.

 

When a dirigible accident brings Tombo in grave danger, she rushes to his aid.  She manages to unlock her powers again and saves him, and afterwards restarts her courier service, letting her parents know all is going well and that she and Jiji are happy.

 

This is a really feel goed Studio Ghibli movie about the struggle of growing up and learning responsibility, and it was a great joy to watch, including the reason stated at the beginning.  So if you want to see some enjoyable "Japan's own Disney" style movie with the kids, put this one on, it's fantastic!

Stargate Atlantis Puddle Jumpers

 Next out of spacedock here, are some nice little Puddle Jumpers from Stargate Atlantis.

 

Produced by Studio Bergstrom, these little  shuttles are cast in metal, and about 1.5cm in length.

 

In the series, these are their main forms of space and air transport, and they are armed with a type of highly destructive drone missiles.  And they actually looked quite cool, but have this very difficult to paint colour. 

 

Is it gold, is it green?   Sometimes it even looked differently in a single episode, so I opted for a bit of both.  I painted up the vessels in a golden colour, and then to add a bronzish look to them, used a green wash over the metallic hull to give it that "this or this" look.

 

In games, I'll be using them as bigger types of shuttles, like bomber squadrons in Warfleets by One Page Rules for example, and as such based them in single numbers on a 25mm round base, my favorite base size to create fighter stands with.

 

Time to add some capital vessels and F302's to make that T'auri / Lantean fleet ready for action! 

The Haul Report 438: piling up on Age of Sigmar

 Another period has graced by, and so it is time for another small overview of obtained loot.

 

And we start of with some bases...

 

These 3D printed resin ones where obtained at Crypts of Halle, where Nico had a bunch of them brought along to take along.  When the venue was cleaned up and everyone had left, I took along the remainder of what was donated for free take-along as such.

 

For the Frostgrave table, some boars arrived as well this week, so that means I have nearly all the models now at hand to fill it out, I "just" need to paint them up.

 

Now of course, that title has to come from somewhere, so here we go.  The first to arrive was my preorder from Age of Sigmer, with the new General's Handbook as well as the playpack for the new Spearhead edition.  And a Daemonsmith added for good measure.

 

But a few days later, Mini Gamers did a stock sale with discounts at -45%, so I snatched up whatever Helsmiths of Hashut boxes where in there, to boost the collection some more. 

 

Through a little sale add, I picked up a pile of Reaper Bones blisters for dead cheap, and these are always handy for things like Frostgrave or to paint up in my Chaos Dwarf trophy unit where eligible. 

 

But the shinies also arrived, with both of the two customised packs of sleeves for my Underworlds deck, because Hashut demanded it!  Now, due to my logo being square, the letters didn't crop perfectly without stretching out the lord himself, but they still look mighty cool. 

 

And that's it for this round, next episode will be the traditional birthday one, so expect some cool loot as well as a heap of themepark merchandise! 

Fantasy Anime League Spring 2026: the results

 The spring season of FAL has gone by, so let's see how we fared!

 

My goal?  Aim for the top 20% of the ranking, something I have been consistenly managing in the previous editions.

 

The tools?  I took the gamble of putting nearly all my eggs in the fantasy basket bar a single series.

 

So how did the series perform, and did they live up to my expectations?

 

Dr Stone Science Future: 2nd place

Tsugai of the Underworld: 1st place

Ascendence of the Bookworm: 10th place

Welcome to Demon School: 9th place

Farming Life in Another World: 14th place

Wistoria's Wand and Sword: 3rd place

Barbarian's Bride: 21st place

Liar Game: 28th place

 

All those amassed to the following results on the 13 week basis:

 

Week 1: 929 th place, 114840 pts, succesfully aced Dr Stone

Week 2: 961 th place, 289294 pts, swapped Farming Life for Liar Game, succesfully aced Tsugai

Week 3: 767 th place, 577836 pts, swapped Liar Game for Wistoria

Week 4: 1470 th place, 685140 pts 

Week 5: 870 th place, 922161 pts, succesfully aced Wistoria

Week 6: 671 th place, 1123277 pts succesfully aced Demon School

Week 7: 857 th place, 1464048 pts

Week 8: 959 th place, 1589360 pts 

Week 9: 728 th place, 1872831 pts, swapped Demon school for Barbarian, succesfully aced Barbabrian

Week 10: 608 th place, 2248901 pts, succesfully aced Bookworm

Week 11: 421 th place, 2478850 pts, swapped Bookworm for Farming Life succesfully aced Farming Life

Week 12: 380 th place, 2740964 pts, swapped Barbarian for Liar, succesfully aced Liar

Week 13  763 th place, 313950 pts

 

So, a nice finish in the end, even though some series seriously where mispicks.  But as with some decent swapping taking place, I actually managed to ace 7 out of my 8 anime series picks, only Liar Game never coming near.  

This made up big time for the selection mistakes like said Liar Game, which seriously fell short of my expectations, and still manage to get in those top regions for the season! But in the heavy "double points" final week, it scored barely 4k points, and that really killed mu ranking in the end.  I had no chance to swap it out or so, as week 12 was the final chance by acing it to get some points out of it, and get a marginal bonus over Barbarian in the end should I not have swapped it out.  But considering I had no anime picked that ended on spots 4 to 8, I did some good swapping and ace-ing to remain in the top ranks.

 

But once again, it was good fun and I must say I keep running within those 5% top region pretty consistently the latest seasons, so yay me...

 

See you all back for the fall edition in all probability, as there is not a summer league running this year.