The Haul Report 174

Loot, loot, loot everywhere!!!

Okay, perhaps not as much as last week at all...

The coolest stuff being these two new Tshirts from Uniqlo, from their line of celebrating 40 years of the Gundam franchise.

From eBay, this booklet came, for fielding the Wrath and Rapture models in Age of Sigmar.

But that wasn't the only ebay parcels, as my Tau project got some good boosting.  Two battlesuits with 4 drones arrived, which I'd found for a 10'er.

With drones going for premium these days, grabbing another 16 for 18 GBP was a fair deal as well.

Finally, Jo gave me this blister for free as he still had it lying around somewhere, thanks matey.

Check back next week for more collection stuffsies!

On the Painting Desk 87

Another week gone by, and part of a unit has been finished.

Now I'm just waiting for a parcel from eBay to "complete" the battlesuits regiment.

But in the meantime, I also been helping out painting a lot of scenery last weekend at the club, and took the opportunity to undercoat some armoured support for my forces on the go.

Not to bad progress at all...

Is this a Fantasy?

So, fantasy is back on the menu then...

Why?  I hear you ask?  Well, let's go on a walk as this old fella tells all about it...

As you can see from the latest hauls, Idoneth Deepkin are finding their way to my collection.  Thi has several reasons, including my beloved Noshi.
Next year, TSA is going to draw the AoS card again, with probably both a small points tournament AND a megabattle.  To that end, I of course need an army, and initially I wanted to take my Slaanesh demons along.
But my love is more a fantasy lover then a sci-fi one as well, and she can then join in together with me.  Instead of 1 army of 3000 points, we will be both commanding a force of 1500 minimum each.

It also helps that for the casual player, Age of Sigmar is far less numbers to remember then Warhammer 40k...

So I'm going to have myself introduced into the second edition, and then will carry the knowledge over to Noshi as well.

Then there is the tournament side of things.  It tingles, I admit, to go back into playing on a more competitive level and meet other players and armies.  My beating at the local store a few weeks ago, bar the result, gave me that drive again albeit ever so slowly.  Now, I won't be going "full in" again, but I want to make my armies back to competive level for just that.

Enter the Ninth Age...

While we where assambling and painting terrain a short while ago, Mike, Jo and me started talking about events and tournaments to game again, but also another step to concretely organising one at the club in 2020.  As a board member, I of course fully support this (shopping and making terrain for example) initiative, and the 9th age, the free downloadable continuation of Warhammer Fantasy, is the perfect setting for this.  And I'll need an army to join in... so it is time to restore Lord Aldades back to his former glory and bring along these warriors:

So to that end, the fantasy card will indeed be pulled out of the sleeve again a bit more often.  For now, it is mostly researching, dumping excess models online, collecting and restoring some other forces and more of that sort of thing though first.  I'll do updates on the blog as they come along...

So now it's time to go search for those green movement trays of old... they must be around here somewhere...

AHPC9: the final tally

And so it already came to pass, three months of painting and reducing lead mountain for the challenge.

And I must say, I managed my 750 points goal again this year... with 3 points and 2 days to spare.

Yes, live has been busy...

So in the end, I finished over 100 Tolkien models (and 3 pieces of scenery) for the challenge, divided over 9 entires all using Lord of the Rings quotes as titles.

Take a look at all that I painted in this short videoclip:

Thanks again to Curt and the team for setting it up once again, and hopefully I'll be in next year again!

Toro Lamps

A small painting post for today, as it contains two small pieces of scatter terrain.

See, these are 3D printed Toro lamps, as could be found in ancient Japan, and great for Burrows and Badgers, or a special terrain project I have planned.

My regular club printer is backing the Country of the Hobgoblin King kickstarter, which is full of japanese buildings including a big pagoda.  I aim to have the set and then some printed more, and be able to build a full village for use with my Gundam inspired T'au in the future.

But that is still far away after all...

Movement Trays

A short and quick one today.

The first of the 3D printed trays for my Lord of the Rings have been painted up.

They are painted to the same green as my bases, and gotten the same flock.  These will as such allow me to better line up and "complete" all the units I have in the pipeline, and easier to arrange in the cabinets.

Now a couple more *couch* to go...

TSA Clubevening of the 22nd of March 2019

Back from London and back to the club, and it had a nice brustling activity this week, with a variety of games.

With campaigns and leagues in full swing, and large tables of troops moving towards each other, there was a lot to see for all those intrested.

The big D-Day landing has started as the allies storm the beach defended by the Germans.

The Warhammer 40k League was in full swing, with three tables being fought over.

Counter- and boardgames where being played as well this week.

In the paint corner, there was work being done on some cosplay gear

A game of Dux was being fought out as well.

As was after that, a game of Chain of Command.  Luckily they didn`t mix their games up, though I would love to have seen the effects of an LMG on chainmail...

The West ran bloody tonight, with two shoot-outs taking place.

Brave souls entered the dungeons of DM Patrick.

While in the Ninth Age the elves faced the forces of darkness...

And that is the overview again from this week's activities... or was it...

Epilogue:

On saturday, we opened the doors again.  The second prelude scenario for the 40k mega game was being fought out, and me and Jo took our time for painting on those buildings you saw me help put together a few weeks ago...

Luckily Mike came to reinforce us in the afternoon, so that we managed to complete no less then 4 boxes full of MDF scenery.

And in the meantime, battles raged on as apart from the 40k scenario, a Ninth Age battle took place as well...

So, nice on schedule, no, even far in front, for the new battlefield of this years mega battle...

The Haul Report 173: it`s time for Age of Sigmar again

Okay, so I cracked.

In the end, after some talks with my buddy Jo, I decided to jump on the bandwagon again and give the fantasy game of Games Workshop another go.

The goal?  At least 1500 points of Idoneth Deepkin for the megagame next year, in which both me and Noshi would then join, she taking my Slaanesh Deamons instead for as well 1500 points, or if time, funds and paint effort permit, both fielding a 3k force.

But the first set I bought is of course that awesome flying shark, partly sponsored by the Element Games voucher I had won a few weeks ago through KiriothTV on YouTube.

More from Element Games, but this time through our group order with Nemesis, comes the Start to Collect box for the faction, saving me that way about 15 euro on store price.

Ebay brought me this small parcel, a "1 pound win" set of Elves to paint up for Noshi to play with.

I also aquired a lot of 40k Imperials for the cheap, containing a Land Raider, A Venerable and a regular Dreadnought, 30 Marines and some loose characters.

A final purchase was some second hand figures from a club member, this time for 40k.  At 15 euro, this boxed set of scouts was a bargain.

And that's it again for this week, and with the Brexit looming ever closer, I'm going to be ordering a lot of stuff still this week before the import duties might hit for the UK...

On the Painting Desk 86

The first "post-AHPC" video this year, and it's time to add some other flavours to the menu.

So first, let`s do some work on those T'au models.

And of course in the meantime keep tinkering with the denizens of Middle Earth...

Dandy Snowflake, Renegade Commander

It's been a while due to the AHPC, but here is the first model for my 40k force painted up this year.

And it's the commander for my Renegades and Heretics Slaanesh force.

The model itself is actually one of the Freebooter's Fate fantasy pirate range, but I exchanged his scabberded sword with a plasmapistol, to represent him with this mighty pistol as well as a power sword.

Taking more inspiration from the Italians in the second world war, where the officers in the desert theatre wore white uniforms with the necessary 'flouf', Iwent for an exorbirant colour scheme of adding pastel blues and purples to the uniform.  Lapels, plumes, they all got this flashy treatment to make him really stand out as such.

Now to start work on some more heavy guns for the force...

It's a dangerous business, going out your door

And this is it, the final entry from me in this years challenge.

Gone are days of preparing the legions of Middle Earth I painted up for this years challenge.

And gone are the days of needing to think up Tolkien quotes to serve as titles

And what better figure to conclude the challenge with the lovely Bilbo Baggins figure...

So the challenge ends for me just as it began... with a single 5 pointer, and takes me nicely over my 750 points goal of this year.

Thanks everyone for a great challenge once more, now all that is left to do is make the group shot post...

London Citytrip 2019

Last weekend, Noshi and me went on a citytrip to London, the city I feel way more at home then this buggery hole of Antwerp.

Especcially Camden, but that is for further down this story...

And we had a lot of things to explore and do, so let`s take a view back on it...

Day 1: The Tower and Jack the Ripper

After arriving at St Pancreas with the Eurostar, we took up basecamp at the Arriva hotel near King's Cross.  A simple hotel and cheap by London standards, this place was good enough for us to sleep and breakfast before we would be away all days anyways.

And so we went on to the first thing on our well-filled menu: the Tower of London.  Now the great thing on going there on a friday afternoon is that there is barely any queing, so we could just walk on to the Crown Jewels and the rest of the exhibits.

Later on that evening, we had a Jack the Ripper walk planned, organised by London walks.  Andy was a great guide, providing us with a lot of "setting" information as well to get a better emergence in the whole period.  One of the top attractions for both me and Noshi we did this weekend.

Day 2: Into the Dungeon, through London to find a ghostly woman

We started off day 2 by taking the tube to Tower, and from there follow the Queens Walk to the London Dungeon.  Along the walk, we stopped at a few things I just wanted to see, being Shakespeare`s Globe Theatre (and thanks to Google Maps, we also went by the location of the original theatre), and the Golden Hinde replica.

After the Dungeon, which was highly enjoyable, we went over Westminster bridge past (the in scaffolding atm) Big Ben to walk through St James Park and that way to Buckingham Palace.

A typical pub meal then followed, and it was time for Hamley's, where Noshi fell in love with the giant plush Porg.

In the evening, we got tickets through one of the discount sale shops for The Woman in Black, a very good and greatly performed horror story, that sent shivers down our spines.

Though the bubbles Noshi grabbed did that as well, 16 GBP for a flute is just incredibly expensive, she almost fainted when she got the bill.

Day 3: Tussauds and the War Museum

The third day, and it was time for Madame Tussauds.  And we both agreed, this was the worst thing of our city trip.  It`s not cheap to get in, and you had to pay two times extra if you wanted to see either the Alien or the Sherlock Holmes rooms, that`s 2x 5 GBP on top of the entry ticket!!!!
It was also incredibly busy (why do they assign timeslots??) and we where actually glad to be out again.  Sure the pieces are nicely made, but half of them you couldn`t even reach due to the masses present.

We hooked up with Adam in the afternoon, a friend of ours on Final Fantasy, and visited the Imperial War Museum.  Very intresting and Adam is a true vault of military knowledge, so no audioguide or guidebook was needed.

We ended at Inamo`s that evening for dinner.  Not to cheap, but the interactive table gave it a nice twist, and the duck was really crispy and tasty.

Day 4: Camden Town babay!

Aaaaah, Camden Town.  If I would ever set up a shop in London, this would be the place.

Also, the Cyberdog store is an experience on it`s own with it`s loud trance music, smoke machines and strobe lights...

It`s also the home of Japan Craft, and while it`s mainpage shows the small shop in the Market, it has a second store as well in the Locks, full of pure anime goodness.  Though i don`t get it who wrote the google review as they apparently no longer sold GunPla:

I couldn`t resist and picked up a Freedom.  At 25GBP, it`s as much as it would be online, but I wouldn`t have the 10+ shipping and customs risk if I went to my regular Hong Kong sources.  And on top, it turned out to be 2 pounds discounted as well, meaning the final tally was 23 pounds.

We ended the afternoon with a meal in late Mss Winehouse "home pub", the Hawleys Arms.

And then it was that sad moment of having to return back to Antwerp, always the hardest part for me even after all those times I was in London... perhaps best illustrated by these greatly matched restaurants next to each other:

But it was a great citytrip, and we still have a lot on our to-do list when we return, but let`s see what that Brexit will be bringing along first for now...