Gotta Catch Them All

With not that much at all to do these days in Mists as the expansion is running to it`s end, and no intrest in going to LFR for that little upgrade left or right that will be outgreened in not time come Warlords, I`ve thrown myself on the pet game the past weeks.

And today, I conquered the last of the basic tamers, Grand Master Aki, unlocking the tamer title for defeating them all and opening the Spirit and Legendary Beasts quest lines, something I will definitly be putting more time in once I get more pets to 25 as those guys are hard as nails.

But first, I will be doing some of the Pet tamer dailies around the world, as well as starting to go out on my safari`s through the various continents, because...

Bring out the Chewing Gum...

Roight, I`m going to bite this bullet.  I`m a smoker.  I`m a nervous, stressfull wreck.  I`m also a collector of fairly expensive hobbies.

And those do not combine decently on a financial level, so I`m going to bite this bullet soon, as in *when my stash runs out* which should be around the end of my exams.

I`M QUITTING!

Because I did these mathematics:

1 x 8 pack of these guys (and that is, at my rate, a week for such a pack)

equals either

1 of these every fortnight

or a boxed sealed set of these thingies or the likes a week.

No mom, I ain`t doing it to save up, I`m doing this to not spend the left over of the monthly finances on my hobbies.  So don`t you go dreaming all, this is MY decision, for MY health, for MY wallet and for MY hobbies and geekiness things.


Editor`s note:  I better be investing in a lot of these as well though or people might start dying...

F1 2014 GP Malaysia - Review

The second race of the season, and after a rain soaked qualifying we find the Mercedes of Hamilton on pole yet again, while most notably the Red Bull of Vettel stands besides him, and the revelations of Australia, Williams, are far in the back.  This has to do with their bit lacking rear aero package, and that is one factor very important in the rain...

Before the race, we had a 1 minute silence for the drama of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing.

Now, how would this race tunr out?  Can Williams stage a comeback to the front?  Can the Caterham`s that are driving a home race take at least a 13th spot to equal prime rivals Marussia?  And how will the Red Bulls hold up in a dry race in the high humidity and temperatures of the asian country?

Even before we start, we already have a retirement in the person of Sergio Perez and a software issue on his Force India.  With team mate Hulkenberg far outqualifying him in 7th, the mexican is currently being seriously overwinged by his team mate.  At the start itself, Rosberg immediatly takes the measure of Vettel and storms to second, the start of the Mercedes show today.  Ricciardo also passes his team mate, but he can straighten this situation in the first laps, while further in the back Bianchi and Maldonado come to contact, resulting in a stop and go penalty for the frenchman.

Lap 2: Raikonnen suffers a puncture just passed the pitlane and falls way back to last place, ruining his race.  Even though he will finish, he won`t be playing any role and end in a disappointing 12th place in the end.  In the meantime, both Williams cars have already steamed into the points with Massa and Bottas at places 9 and 10 respectively.

Lap 6:  As Hamilton steams further away from the pack, he puts in the fastest lap.

Lap 7: Maldonado is called in, an issue on the Renault engine causing an early retirement for the Lotus, in order to save the power source from further damages.

Lap 10: Magnussen comes in for a nose change, as he has been the culprit for Raikonnen's puncture in lap 2, and is awarded a stop and go penalty on top for this.  The first of the three estimated rounds of pit stops has started, but don`t cause to many shifts, bar Bianchi who retires from the race.

Lap 13: Hamilton is taking half a second on team mate Rosberg, and a full second on the rest of the field per lap.

Lap 15: Yay, as he hasn`t pitted yet, Kobayashi is running in an 8th place... pity there is no way bar a lot of retirements he can probably keep this up.

Lap 19: It is funny to see Ericsson in the other Caterham fight it out with Vergne in the Toro Rosso and Raikonnen in the Ferrari for position, and even doing it so succesfully.  This guy is way better then those two blokes that had a wheel at Caterham`s last year and where basically `moving chicanes`.

Lap 20: Vergne has to retire, and that already makes the second Renault powered car before half race.  At red Bull it seems they have solved most issues with the engine as they are running 3rd and 4th, but the other teams seem to be still on the backburner.

Lap 22: ALREADY the order is given at Mercedes to go into `Engine Saving Mode` and control the pace of the race, so complete is their dominance in the first half of the race.

Lap 25: Again driving above the capabilities of his car, Hulkenberg is catching up on Alonso`s Ferrari.

Lap 28: The second round of pit stops is in full swing, but nothing really shifts in the rankings.

Lap 31: Reports of chance on very light rain start coming in...

Lap 34: Sutil's Sauber comes to a halt on the start finish straight, as Hulkenberg comes in for his second pit stop.  It seems that on the contrary to all other teams, he is the only one on a 2 stop strategy instead of 3.  A gamble as he will definitly be losing grip later on!

Lap 35:  In the the furthest corners of the circuit a light rain starts to fall, leading to Vettel believing Rosberg`s Mercedes is leaking some sort of fluid, but this is soon set straight by his team.

Lap 37: As Gutteriez retires his Sauber in the pits with seemingly a breaking problem, the rain issue seems to be certain and most teams are going to gamble not pitting for the harder tyre compound, as Wet conditions overrule the regulations of having to drive on both compounds during a grand prix.

Lap 39: Alonso is starting to put pressure on Ricciardo... who will from now on become the focus on the race.

Lap 41:  As the final round of pitstops gets underway, the sympathetic aussie comes in.  However, his front left wheel isn`t connected very well and he rolls to a stop within the pit lane.  The team pushes him back and attaches the wheel properly... only to release him unsafely what will yield a 10 second stop and go penalty.  To add more insult, within two laps he has to return to the pits as his front wing got disconnected by hitting a curve.  His race ruined, he will resume the race until retiring in lap 52, as this would allow them a gear box change without a grid penalty in the next race and he had 0 chance to score any points today.  With the issues of Melbourne and the team screw up today, he has been driving great for 2 races, yet still has a 0 behind his name in scored points.

Right up until this point I had Red Bull in mind to be nominated team of the race for me, as with their terrible season build up plagued by issues, they had gotten their act together... but then amateuristically screwed it up here.  One wonders though, like before with Webber, why it happens to the `other driver` then Vettel again...

Lap 45:  Controlling the race, Hamilton knocks in a fastest lap again.

Lap 46: As Massa starts attacking the McLaren of Button, it dawns that rain won`t be happening, causing a lot of cars to have to come in penultimately for the Hard compound none the less.

Lap 48: The Ferrari does have pace, as Alonso smacks in the fastest lap in his hunt for the 4th place still occupied by the drifting Hulkenberg who is getting grip issues due to his 2 stop strategy.

Lap 50 and 51: The three leading cars all pit for the harder compound, but no real time gains or losses are made.

Lap 52: Alonso overtakes Hulkenbergm but with still a 40 second gap to Button in 6th, the german is sure that if he just keeps his car on the track for those remaining 4 laps he will bring home solid points.

Lap 53:  Massa gets team orders to let the faster Bottas pass in order to launch an attack on Button in 6th, but this doesn`t come to pass as the brazilian keeps his position.  The first in team war in the making?  Hamilton laps a fastest round 2 seconds!!! quicker then all the rest, degrading them to a standers by position, and takes the chequered flag for his first win of the season.

Result:

1. Hamilton - Mercedes

2. Rosberg - Mercedes
3. Vettel - Red Bull Renault

4. Alonso - Ferrari
5. Hulkenberg - Force India Mercedes
6. Button - McLaren Mercedes
7. Massa - Williams Mercedes
8. Bottas - Williams Mercedes
9. Magnussen - McLaren Mercedes
10. Kvyat - Toro Rosso Renault

11. Grosjean - Lotus Renault
12. Raikonnen - Ferrari
13. Kobayashi - Caterham Renault
14. Ericsson - Caterham Renault
15. Chilton - Marussia Ferrari

Again, the Mercedes engine outclassed everyone else, putting 7 out of 10 cars of the points scorers with a german engine in their backs.  Renault has two scorers, while only a single Ferrari engine entered there where it mattered.  Notable is the fact that Kvyat yet again scored a point, as did fellow rookie Magnussen, while with Ericsson all three rookies of this season came to the finish line.

The Caterham team managed to equal the result of Chilton in his Marussia in Australia, a good result for those extra millions, and Grosjean brought a Lotus to the finish, something they can build upon for sure.

In terms of strength after two races, it is clear that Mercedes is high above the rest.  I think red Bull, fully supported by Renault, is becoming the number two team already, right above Williams (definitly the best of the non big teams), Ferrari and McLaren.

The midfield for me is Toro Rosso more then Force India as the italians have more consistency then the indian team, but the latter has Hulkenberg, God that really is a great and strong driver and I think he alone is going to nail it for the team.

The lower midfield, is closer nit together.  Caterham and Marussia are not as far behind Lotus and Sauber as one might expect, and especcially my favorite green team has a strong line up with on the one hand Kobayashi, who is a good driver, period, and Ericsson who is better then the average `pay driver` you tend to get in those bottom teams.  In the end, they all got lapped just about 1 time, where before the midfield tended to lap those two teams regularly as well.

A special mention MUST go to Chilton, who still has NOT to finish a Grand Prix in his career.  he isn`t the fastest on the tracks, but he definitly is a reliable driver and not one causing incidents during the overtaking.

Team of the Race:  No doubt, that has to be Mercedes.  Scoring their first 1-2 finish since Italy 1955 (okay, they are only back for 5 years), they are plucking the fruits of their already 2 years of preparation for this season.  I doubt anyone will be able to even slightly threaten them before we get back to Europe and larger updates tend to happen, if even then (not counting Monaco where engine power buys you zilch).

Driver of the Race: Hulkenberg.  Give that guy a chance in a better team and he`ll be scoring podiums and even wins by the bucket, believe me...

Next stop of the season will be Bahrein on the 6th of april (aka, next week) in their 10th year jubilee and as a night race for the occassion, hope to see you all then!

The Plan - Week 7

Twilight Highlands.  It seems this Cataclysm area is the new homeland for the moment of Lÿntaria, because since my Guild post of a few days ago, this is where I`ve been residing the most, fishing and cooking while slaying innocent critters.  But it did get the Dragonmaw to Exalted, my 54th faction I obtained that with...

Not only that, but it is an achievement that is going to take a LONG time, so bar the Tillers to bump my cooking and the daily cooldown crafting for Tailoring and Engineering, I haven`t been doing that much the past week.

Now, the engineering did pay off, as even though I got that Hearthsteed mount I reported on past monday, today I`ve build my Sky Golem mount.  The beast is fun, especially as it flies looking like Superman wiggling all left and right while airborne, so many people have it (it isn`t BoP) that I`m sticking with my green Kite for now.

The second mount I just got was the Spectral Wolf from Tol Barad, leaving me with a single token left, and 199 to go.  I think I`ll be relocating there the coming weeks to fish up Fathom Eels for the Pool achievement as well as the Cataclysmic oven achievement, popping in the pvp for the occasional extra bonus of 3 tokens.

But that is not all important, the Darkmoon Faire returns tonight, and now my Battle Pets that I need (Elemental with the Phoenix Hatchling, Dragonkin with the Spirit of Competition and Mechanical with the Varmin Nut 5000) are all set to go to toss in some extra daily tokens and maybe loot the Darkmoon Eye pet from the rewards bag.

Which brings us to the goals of last week of obataining enough Battlestones to upgrade all my commons. In the end, I ran to few instances to use Justice Points for all of them, though i did manage to upgrade 4 out of the 7 needed, while maintaining a Flawless Stone for the case I ever come across an Unborn Valkyrie or so.  I`ll sort it out one of these days, to get those missing two Beasts and a single Aquatic stone.  But the Paladin did get to 75 in the meantime...

I obtained the cool Mr Bigglesworth cat from completing raiding with leashes, and just two more to go for the Leashes 2 achievement, being the Abyssal from Karazhan`s Prince, and the Tideskipper from Serpentshrine.

Alts and Pets

Talking Pet battles, I tamed the entire Continent while levelling pets up to level 25, and hopefully by next week I`ll have at least one of each family remaining, being Beast, Critter, Magic and Undead, on the maximum level, which is the first goal I`m setting.

Mounts

If I do my dailies dutifully, I should be able to obtain my first of the two Darkmoon mounts, so for the second goal this week, it is this.  Another not to farflung goal IF I keep focus!

Goldmaking

Okay, so I shopped A LOT with the Tuskarr gold, remaining with enough gold to buy the two remaining reputation mounts, one each from Dominion Offensive and Sunreaver Onslaught when I hit them on Exalted.  With Warlords still on the far horizon, these factions for now are on the backburner,  slowly grinding my way through other things first.  So as long as I have more then 10.5k in gold, I`m alright and on schedule.  I will be selling stacks of looted cloth, but have quit playing on the AH for now trying to make some serious gold, as I don`t have real needs for it anymore.  All the cooking is almost maxed out, my farm can keep up growing in my current needs, and the occasional Cataclysm cooking stuff that comes along isn`t expensive.

Guild

The third goal, and the hard grind for the coming week.  By next week, I want to have the Critter Kill Squad on 16000, the oven on 1750 and the pool fishing 1800.  Do-able perhaps, but I fear it will be solo work though.

The Goals

So that is a lot of work to do without it being actually a lot of work (yeah yeah, sounds complicated), but that gives me these targets all focussed on and by my main:

* All pet families on level 25
* Obtain Darkmoon Dancing Bear
* Achieve the 3 guild intermediate goals

No idea if I`ll get there, but we will be trying for sure!  See you all next week for the next planned ramblings...

UPDATE: okay, I`m an idiot, the Faire starts NEXT week...

Just my luck... again

You remember that Knights of the Zodiac volume I was so happy to find at FACTS last year for 30 instead of 250+ euros online?

Well, it seems I have ran into the same wall all over again.  My collection misses Episode G volume 15 (french edition) as my local retailer ran out of stock, and now you don`t find it on Amazon and the likes for under 150 USD.

So the hunt for a new Holy Grail recommences, starting at Antwerp Convention next month, for this book...

Wise lesson learned since, from the moment a new tome pops up at Archonia for pre-orders in the franchise, I have been pre-ordering, never again will this happen for a third time!

When you Guild starts stalling

It`s a phenoma common to most middle class and lower class guilds in World of Warcraft.  They start of with an enthousiastic project, have a recruitment drive and a legion of alts, and then start stalling as the goals cannot be reached *just* as fast as planned.

People have mains transferred to other guilds leaving the alts behind, or as is seemingly the case at the moment within Viridis Gathering, wander off to other games until the next expansion is hitting the shelves.  I saw it happen before in smaller guilds and usually it are the bigger ones (like my former Alliance guild Rhyme and Punishment) that `survive` and carry on during those grey days between expansions.

Lately the guild has been calm indeed.  The `management` pops by now and then but usually there are only 3-4 people online in the heights of the game, often I have the kingdom all to myself.  In the old days, this might pose a problem, but these days with the cross server raids, connections and all the likes, it is barely an issue.

I`ve become the top contributor all time even at the moment due to my daily reputation and mount hunts, and seemingly together with a Death Knight called Vordred are amongst the only ones having interaction within the ranks at the moment as we both share the love for trying to complete older achievements.  And he is out hunting two pets for me as well, the Abyssal one dropping from the Karazhan end boss and the Tideskipper from Serpentshrine ;-).  In other words, a fellow Lore and Content hunter...

 For the rest it are a few lone guns playing, but at the moment we`re losing about a member a day.

In older days, I would be tended to leave the guild to look for more active places to hang out, but with my irregular schedule and `so much needless things to do` I`m staying loyal to the cause of Viridis Gathering.  In the future, there are namely a few things that can happen...

* Either the guild `re-activates` once Warlords of Draenei hits
* Or it disbands and I have to look for a fresh one
* Or in the extreme case, activity grows so low that I `inherit` it by default

Let`s just imagine that last thing WOULD happen though in no way I hope that does.  From past experiences, running a guild smoothly is `not my cup of tea` as it takes a lot of leveraging as well as structurising.  But in this extreme case, I would definitly overturn the concept of the guild, growing it into a mixture of Rhyme and Punishment and, for the old timer Moongladers, perhaps one of the most controversial Horde guilds of half a decade ago, the Court of the Sun (Blood Elves where ruling class, the rest was labelled `servant` or `slave`, and they RP`d arrogantly as hell).  In other words, a Blood Elf centered RP guild, but without the degrading of the other Horde races.

But that is probably and luckily never going to happen.

What I have decided to occupy myself with though during the coming months of limboness in the Guild, is to, even if it has to be solo and take a lot of time, try and achieve a heap of achievements for the guild, but with perks and benefits that fit myself.

The first of those I started on is the Critter Kill squad, where the guild needs to kill 50.000 critters in the game.  With the original guild focus set on assembling an end game raid team, this is one of those perks overseen.  Now I`ve started nuking the beasties where I can, and brought it down mostly myself in the past days while doing pet battles from 37k to go 35k.  I want that Armadillo ;-)

Other planned things in the long run are the Set the Oven to Cataclysmic, for the recipy, which still needs about 3500 dises prepared, and That`s a Lot of Bait for the Seafood Feast recipy, which needs over 8000 fish to be caught from pools.  Since I am `quite` proficient in the Cooking and Fishing proficiencies, this must be do-able.

Who knows what time will bring, but for now, I`m not worrying and keep on enjoying my perks of bonus reputation and reduced merchant costs...

Because like this NPC rightly noticed:

Book Review: Viking - Odinn`s Child by Tim Severin

I finished one of the books I picked up last december in Canterbury from a charity store, and even though I haven`t been reading as much as I like too, this book is an entertaining read.

Tim Severin, historicus, explorer and writer, is known for his fiction and non-fiction works that track the life and adventures of (fictional) persons, like the Trail of Marco Polo.

The Viking trilogy is the tale of Thorgills (yes, i got my Mitgardian Lego MOC ship`s name from the book) Leifsson, a person that has actually existed in history and who was the son of Leif the Lucky and an Irish noblewoman said to have possessed the visions power, or seidr in Norse mythology.

Odinn`s Child is the first of the series (I lack part 2 though, so i`m holding off on reading the third instalment until I find it in some bargain basement) and details the early life of Thorgills.  In this book, the tale is spun how he travelled twice to Vinland at a young age (the current United States) where he encountered the Native Americans or `Skraelings`.  Obsessed by Odinn the All-Father, Thorgills grows up as a follower of the Old Ways, and his quest to find out more about his mother leads him to Ireland.

Here he finds himself wound up in the middle of the Battle of Clontarf and the assassination of the High King Brian Boru right after the famous battle.  Taken as a slave, he is then donated to the monastery of St Ciarian`s, to study as a monk.  His knack for languages quickly has him rising through the appreciation of his peers, even though he hides his faith in the Old Ways and passes of as a follower of the White Christ until he falls in love with the daughter of the village leatherworker.

Forced to flee, he encounters perhaps the most influential man of his youth, an irish `law speaker` until the monastery finally catches up with him and banish him from the lands, where he is picked up again by the Norse.

I can`t give to many story spoilers of course, or no-one would read the book, but the style it is written in makes it an amusing venture.  The book weaves fictional stories and mysterious mystic powers well together with accurate historical events, making it both an adventure novel as well as a history lesson, without dwindling down in a boring session of dry facts.

The book itself gives insights in the old Norse lifestyle, and how it is slowly but surely surplaced by the advent of Christianity as the main faith in both Ireland as the old Norse communities.  If you fancy a good bed-time read (or in my case, bath-time reading), see if you can snatch up this book. I certainly hunger for reading part two, so my eye is scouring the net `just in case`.

Simpsons Collectible Minifigs

The next series of collectible minifigs from LEGO are all about the Simpsons.

As with the regular 'Series' and the Movie series, these are 16 blindbagged models to be found at random in the sets, so another heap of models to be trading around to get the models you actually want.

Which in my case is not a single one to be honest, as Comic Book Store Guy isn't included, but I expect the munchkin to want them...

A lot of Saints announced: EX Taurus, Myth Misty Surplice and CGI Aiolos

What a great day of eye candy for the Saint Seiya collector like myself.  After the news of the new Gundam anime coming this year, Tamashii has released images of a their summer releases.

Two posts about my two favorite series today... one might almost think my Cosmo is flaring up!

The first up is the good hearted and huge Gold Saint of Taurus, Aldebaran.  Though unfortunatly for him, he is one of the few original series Gold saints outshone by the newer generation in Omega, with Harbinger, but never the less the EX series Taurus is still a great looking model.  I especially like the look of his `deceased` mode, arms spread in the Great Horn pose, as he killed his opponent even while sacrificing himself.

Secondly today, there is now a Surplice recolouring of the silver saint Lizard Misty.  I still need to get my paws on the original version, but this one is like Perseus a recoloring of a very minor character in the Hades arc.  He appeared for like half a minute when he was one of the three ressurected Silver Saints sent to Siberia to assassinate Hyoga, though in truth they where still loyal to Athena and actually went to show and warn him Hades was awakening.

The final part is the weekly revelation of the CGI movie characters, this time with Aiolos of Sagittarius.  The Gold Saint that played such a small though pivotal role in the original series also has a rendered cloth very close to the original.  He has already been shown a while ago to be released in Myth format, and I must say I really, really like him...

Cheerios!

Gundam Reconguista in G

After the two previous, let`s put it mildly, not so great series for the franchise, Yoshiyuko Tomino (director of Turn A Gundam) returns for the 35th anniversary series.

The style does look indeed as the rather different previous series he directed, but where AGE was terrible and Build Fighters was, well, a cute trip down the mental fantasies of GunPla builders, it seems we`re going back to the core style of the series.

Of course, not much can be said for now, it will air later this year, and be feaured in the timeline DIRECTLY after Universal Century, basically rebuilding the franchise (not rebooting, as it builds upon instead of starting over) and I expect references to Turn A, where the UC is also shown in the flashbacks of the finale.

Here is the first trailer:



Talking trailers and Universal Century, the episode 7 OVA trailer for the Excellent and Beautiful Unicorn has also been popping over on the net... pity this is going to be the final movie of the series, I loved it



Cheerios!

Hearthstone - the Hearthsteed has been obtained

Yesterday I finally installed the Hearthstone free cardgame, which is basically the follow up of the discontinued cardgame from WoW in digital version.

Now, I know that if you win three games against other players, you get a Feat of Strength and a Mount in World of Warcraft, and I did play a bit of the cardgame years ago (with a Blood Elf deck, go figure heheh).

Drawing on that knowledge, I went through the tutorial games, as I started out with Jaina and her Mage deck, and once I got through that I started tweaking my deck in a style I like to play Magic: `red aggro` or at least it`s poorly equivalent as you don`t have a big pool to chose from at the start, and I ain`t putting money into this game.

So up where all the direct damage spells, and all the Charge creatures which is the equivalent of Haste.  I quickly won my first match, against a player called Gaarghat and his Mage deck with a 23 vs -2 win.

Lost the next one but the third game yesterday was another bingo, TDWMerlin and his Shaman deck went down to the swift offensive I put up with a 22 / -1 score.  In the meantime, my gained points, gold and packs resulted ironically in cards for the only other deck I had unlocked before then, a Paladin deck in practice mode, and I decided to give that one a try for a swift game. 

Building it all irritating and time drawing on Taunt creatures (this was something I had to re-adapt to, creatures cannot block in WoW as in MtG, but with Taunt they MUST be attacked) and a lot of Heals, this deck is constructed to draw time until the Stormwind Champion comes on the board.  Or my Hero starts jumping around attacking all the while healing himself.  Funnily enough, he came up against Lovecoil and his Mages deck, build around it seemed Taunt and Fireballs, so he could get those two balls of flame through (which I healed up again) while my more numerous hight toughness low strength Taunt minions wethered his fewer minions down before grinding him out to a 25 / -6 score win.

It was a nice experiment, but a Paladin deck isn`t my style, but never the less within 2 hours of installation the Hearthsteed was delivered by mail to Lÿntaria, bringing the count up  to 157 mounts now.

The rest of the evening I played some ranked matches to unlock some cards by points for the Mage deck, it works let`s say 65% of the time... IF the opponent can`t get a good opening hand so I can start pressure right off from turn 1.

I think I`m going to check at my local watering hole if they still play the WoW cardgame in draft format there when I`m going to play PTQ Portland in Magic the 13th of April...

The Plan - Week 6

It has been a very quiet week for Warcraft.  Well, only for Warcraft actually, as I had a gazillion things to take care off, resulting in not getting much game time in, not even touching the game between tuesday and thursday.

Never the less, for some reason I did get my set goals completed.  I pushed the August Celestials to Exalted, resulting in getting both the Cloud Dragon Mount from them, as well as obtaining the Pandaren Ambassador meta achievement, that gave me a nice Red Kite mount.  And the very handy Royal Satchel pattern for very big bags...

And grabbed the first of the missing mounts from the Tournament, the Argent Warhorse.

The second goal, getting all three of my `core pets` to level 20 for when the Darkmoon Faire returns, was mostly achieved by my workhorse Paladin...

... though by spending money, I scored the 250 unique pets achievement as well and the reward, a Feral Virmling.

And it has been a lot of gold to be spend, as my Tuskarr kite pet from the CCG sold, netting me 100k, and with that money I first bought all the Living Steel and Ghost Iron Bars I`ll be needing to build a Sky Golem as well as the Pierre and RascalBot pets, now I just need to daily convert 10 bars in Jard`s Power Sources until I got all those needed, should take more then a month still though as you can only do 1 a day and need a total of 60 for all three to be build.

The second thing I bought was one of the Tiger mounts available, the Sunstone Panther.  I`m making sure that I keep over 25k before WoD hits to be able to get all needed upgrades by then, but for the rest I`m happily blowing the gold pieces through the hole, and I have been buying companion pets, mostly rarer drops of around 1000 - 2000 goldpieces by the bucket now.

General

The coming week I don`t really have big plans for Lÿn.  I`m going to keep pushing through instances and tillers planting to get Dominion closer to exalted (it`s only nearing Honored though, so that`ll take some time as well) as well as the Sunreavers, and buy out their two mounts when I get there.

Popping into the occassional LFR like I did this week when i had some time is definitly also an option, and for the rest it`ll be mostly Tol Barad token gathering.  I`m considering about abanoning the grind for the Argent Tournament, leaving that to the alt workhorse who is coming inot Northrend at the moment, ready to do more pet battles and levelling there...

The only thing I am going todo is install the Hearthstone and try to win those 3 battles for the Hearthsteed. relying on my knowledge of the original CCG, but realising those starterdecks are probably shaboogles...

Alts and Pets

Which brings us to the big goal pusher for this week, Pokemon Pet Battles.  Yes I admit, I find it a very fun distraction in the game, and am now facing the outland elite trainers so I need to push up more pets to the 20+ region, so the first thing to do is get an Undead one to level 10 for the No Favorites achievement, which should be taken care off today.  After that, my Paladin gets the trip to Northrend and not only start questing there, but fighting the companions over there and build up on the collection.
Now only if I can find how I unlock the Argent Tournament again, it has been years since I first went there, I can put both him and my level 90 boosted Priest to work to gather those Champion Seal`s for the mounts and pets still missing...
The only thing I should do though is obtaining seven battlestones for the pets to upgrade those poor three common quality pets I once captured in the early days to rare level, so I probably will be running trainer dailies and hope... or use Justice Points at the vendors that I should get from the daily instance running.

So in conclusion, I don`t have any great plans for this week, if the Karazhan weekly run should drop the Huntsman`s mount, that would be great but I`m not counting on that, even though I know can get at least two runs in on a weekly basis, the only goals for this week are:

* Obtain the mount through Hearthstone
* Get the Paladin levelled to level 75
* Make the whole pet collection at least uncommon in quality

See you next week to see how it turns out

Saint Seiya CGI Saga revealed at Animejapan 2014

This weekend at the largest Anime convention in Japan, the lead villain of the Saint Seiya Sanctuary arc, and as such the upcoming movie, has been revealed.

Saga, misguided and split personality Gemini saint, is, let`s put it midly, `intresting` in design.  His Cloth is great looking and really resembles the anime version, but where his shifts between good and bad where achieved in the original by his hair colour changing, here they went for what looks like a hybrid armour between the Gold Cloth on the one side, and his Surplice he wore during the Hades arc on the other hand.

Now, I just don`t know what to think of it in all honesty, it might work considering it probably won`t be to long in the movie (they have to run 12 temples + defeat Saga in about 2 hours time, that`s about a fifth of the anime series), but the dual coloured black white cloak for one definitly doesn`t seem to sweet.


The convention of course supported some more eye candy, but the more I look at it, the more I find Hyoga`s Cygnus cloth ressemble the Omega version.  Which isn`t a bad thing mind you, of all the new generation cloths of the `Fab5`, it definitly is the best looking in Omega.

And some more eye candy, the true scale Sagitarrius cloth!

Finally, some more pictures, I for one can`t wait for the movie, though I admit it will be taking a bit of used to the new looks for an old schooler like me, just like Omega did (though season 2, which I`ll be reviewing in a fortnight, had a lot of old guy fanservice).