The Haul Report 385: Christmas Joy!

 Naughty or nice, it is the question we all ponder about for when the jolly bearded man comes down the chimney.

And it seems in my case I have been very nice, as the loot has been fantastic, thank you everyone!

On christmas eve, we unwrapped presents and I got a lovely stash of goodies.  Finally a new keyboard, saying farewell to my Logitech G15 after the better part of two decades.  I also received a Snowball microphone, which I now have to figure out how to use, but will improve my sound quality for my YouTube videos AND will give the opportunity to comment during games of FF14 or the likes.

Other gifts included a poncho for the rainy weather when cycling to work, sporting my new NASA socks.  I also received the second and third volumes of Asumi-chan is only intrested in Lesbian Brothels.

At my mother-in-law's, Secret Santa came to visit, and he brought along the Deathgorge box for me, which was highly welcomed and the Idoneth warband is going up and front of the paint line for 2024!  He also brought along a cardgame which I'll be cracking open on the traditional games night with friends on new year's eve.

So those where some awesome gifts this year, thanks everyone!

On the Painting Desk 262

 The last one of the year, which isn't hard of course as tomorrow it is New Year's eve.

And with a week of holidays behind me, albeit a mighty busy one, I did some minor advancing on the projects... because I took up tanking again, this time in FF14.

Which is mainly of course the big Fomoroid Crusher, a model I had scheduled to complete during december, yet failed on that part, as it is currently first layer completed only, with some minor work already done on the second.

The Alchemical Monstrosity has been put to the side for now, until I can dedicate some decent paint time into it, but that is one that doesn`t even need to be finished in the first quarter of 2024 anyways, so slow and steady some work will be done in between on it, only some green added to the beastie for the tentacles.

The january project though already received some minor loving, as I began painting on the Hobgoblins for the force with their first layer of skin.

But I will be pushing forward on that warband though, as I want them actually finished rather fast and be able to join a (in the very early planned stages) Mordheim play day at Tin Soldiers of Antwerp.

The Best of 2023 Awards

 Another year has flown by, so that means it is once again time for my totally subjective view of the geeky stuff I liked the most in the past 365 days.

And it is to be honest a bit of a mixed bag this year, as wargaming came back into swing next to the anime dominated editions of the past two years.

So without further ado, let's have a look at my personal awards!

Best movie: a fairly recent one, this is A Haunting in Venice.  I've taken a liking to Kenneth Brannagh's portrayal of Poirot, and the fact this is expanded on an existing short story actually made for a good who dunnit tale, without knowing the outcome in advance as there is no book of this movie written by Agatha Christie.

Best Series: not counting the final 10 minutes of the series, 1899 was by far one of the most entertaining shows I saw in a very long time, and grabbed my attention from the get-go.

Best Performace: even though Netflix has cancelled (unrightfully so mind you) the Shadow and Bones series, Freddy Carter's performance as the dark and glooming crime lord / anti-hero Caz Bekker really stood out for me this year.

Best Toy: is there any discussion then the GGG scale of Lunamaria Hawke?

Best Anime: Space Battleship Yamato 2199, a remake from 2017 of the classic 70s anime, and while just as excellent in story, it is also gorgeously animated.  The take-off scene of the Yamato alone was for me the goosebumps moment in anime for this year.

Best Game: while I could pick The Ninth Age for getting me going again, it goes instead to Warhammer Underworlds and it's Rivals format.  This makes it ideal for a quick take along for some games, ideal for a working person and family life timegrabbing combination.

 

 

Best Videogame: while I kicked off again with Final Fantasy XIV in december, this year still goes to Super Mecha Champions, which I thoroughly enjoyed until about mid-august.

 

 

Best Wargame Figure: I cannot pick anything else then the Chaos Dwarf Earthshaker here.  Not only did I always love these big cannons, it got my back to the wargames table.

 

 

Best Music: Lorenzo with Coco.  I heard it while lying on the tattootable at the Arel Tattoo Convention, and it stuck into my head for about a month.

 

 

Best Trade: a big box of old metal Clan Wars figures I received from a collegue long out of the hobby.  The goblins for one are the levy troops in my Infernal Dwarf force that could be seen on this blog in the past months.

 

 

Best Convention or Event: the Arel Tattoo Convention for my Thorin underarm Kitsune piece.

 

Greatest Disappointment: the loss of my father, who fought a short and hefty battle against lungcancer, passing away in august.

 

And that is it, the look back to the year of 2023.  Time to move on now and get going for a next year of geekiness, and all the things it will bring about...

What I Won in 2023

 Okay, first of all, there is no way I guess I can top the huge win streak of 2022, which yielded over a 1000 euro in prizes.

But that doesn't mean we won`t be going to give it a shot!

 

The year did start slow though, and the first thing I'd win was on the 17th of february, with this lovely looking Himiko Toga over on Tokyo Catch!

Hopefully she was the start of a nice streak, and on the first of march I caught myself a Demon Slayer Hashira noodle stopper.

A day later, I managed to grab a Nezuko figure over at Otaku House, a claw machine and webstore in Singapore.

And she was joined by Yushiro a few days after.

I had these shipped out the 19th of march, and they safely arrived the 8th of april.

On the 12th of march, another Nezuko joined the wins, this time again over at TokyoCatch.

 

 

But that is not all, because on the 14th, Trunks joined the "to be send out" pile as well.

And it kept coming, as the 16th I caught Lemillion, a figure I wanted since it was announced as a prize.

More Otaku House winnings, as the 18th I grabbed another Demon Slayer chibi figure.

The day after I had the above 5 TokyoCatches shipped out, lady luck smiled on me again as I got Anya and Bond Forger!  As none others where caught in the storing period, she was shipped out on her own though.

And on the last day of march, a Tanjiro chibi was caught, I guess this one goes on the trade pile...

They where shipped out on the 27th of march.

On the 4th of may, I won "that guy I don`t like at all as he is scary" namely Shigaraki from My Hero Academia.  At least it's his version without those creepy hands...

As well as this Kirby's Dream Land Interior figure, which will cover free shipping.

On the 17th of may, Kanroji, the love hashira joined the prize pool.

I had them all shipped to me on the 28th of may.

On the 29th, I scored again, grabbing a One Piece DFX The Grandline Men Kin'emon figure.

 

While on the 2nd of june, I grabbed that one prize figure I did just have to have: Dress-up Darling's Marin!

On the 7th of june, I scored a double with both the Mist hashira Tokito, as well as a pillow from Sailor Moon being caught.

Adding to that pile, the 13th of june Ichika joined the loot.

They where all shipped out at the end of june, so a fresh batch could hopefully be won... and the 5th of july, I scored a Demon Slayer Kanao as such.

While the 7th, I obtained a figure for my waifu collection with a Kurumi

 

On the 9th, I treated myself to a little birthday gift lol, as I grabbed none other then Seiya himself!

I also won the Spot My Car contest of Art Photo Studio Ribbi this month, and received a good fun price.  Also, beer!

On the first of august, Best Jeanist joined the pile of loot for this year.

On the 7th of august, Asuka Langley joined the pile as well.

The 24th of september added another One Piece figure to the loot of the year.

Adding to the stack to ship out together, another copy of the Asuka has been caught...

I had both shipped out as such end of october.

 

On the 21st of november, a Rimuru acryllic plate joined the loot pile, something that will look good on the Slime shelf as a backdrop.

 

While a day later, a figure of Dabi joined the loot pile.
 

Playing a Warhammer Underworlds tournament on the 25th, this saw me bring home some price support after 3 years at last, in the form of alternate art cards and acryll wound tokens.

On the 13th of december, a week before I planned to have the above two items for TokyoCatch shipped out, another Toga joined my loot pile.  She was the first win of the year, and in all probability this version will be the last price for 2024 as well.

And so wrong I was about that, because on christmas eve, Daki decided to grace my collection with her sexyness.

That means a total value of 680 euro has been amassed this year.  Not as huge as last year, but definitly not to shabby to expand the collection!

The Goals of 2023 result

 So, the year has passed, and that means it is time to look at the achieved, or failed, goals.

And it is a bit of a mixed cookie to be honest, as this was an emotional rollercoaster year to be sure.

For one, my father got severly sick from lung cancer, a diagnose he received last year december.  Finally finding peace after a long struggle,

But on the other hand, I picked up on my wargaming again, even playing tournaments this year, the first social outing in that hobby eversince the corona pandemic commenced.  this also meant I finally reclaimed my printer, to be able to print bases and movement trays at full speed.  Heck, once october came, I really threw myself back at it, playing in two tournaments, respectively 9th Age and Underworlds, though the results as expected where not that awesome... yet.  That will grow once I get back to more regular gaming outings, and with a drivers license on the way, I will be able to attend more in the coming years for sure.

But let's have a look now at the planned goals for the year, and I must say I achieved quite some "green" lines this year round.

One I didn`t manage to obtain was having four tattoos worked on / placed.  The cleaning up of the Hagen tattoo will be for the first quarter of 2024 instead, because agenda's, while I didn't find what I wanted at the tattoo conventions I attended, so the search for cool flaming dice continues, so it ended at 2 out of 4 planned, though the second one wasn't actually planned unfortunatly...

The beer goal though, that was blown out of the water, going far over the 50 that I had set myself.  Helped by attending 2 beer festivals and some trips to other regions to find a lot of local beers, I do realise that for future goals of this, it will always be harder to get to 50 new ones, but we keep tasting as we close the year with 184 new discoveries!

The 1/400 Gundam MechaTop models went in two parts: I managed a couple in the beginning of the year, before as I mentioned starting wargaming in earnest again as I build a 9th Age army from april onwards, while near the middle of the year I did more as that said army was nearing completion.  I ended up at 4 out of 10 planned in the end.  One can say that GunPla went the same, falling just short of the goal with three being finished at the very beginning of the year and one at the end, but this resulted in 4 out of the planned 5 completed in the end.

The reading and watching goals all where obtained without to much trouble, the last one, anime, clocking off at it's goal in the beginning of november.  To that end, I read 53 out of the 50 planned books and manga, while I watched 25 out of the 20 planned movies.  Series went very well this year, often watching something while painting, and came as such to 32 out of the planned 20, way more then expected and I still have a backlog to see with Noshi in the evenings.  On an anime front, while 50 seemed a lot (wait for my goal for next year!), I ticked out at the end at 58 out of 50 seen, and the alphabet challenge completed (which counted for 27 of those finished anime series).

Only the struggle aginst the scales went not really according to plan, being still way of the goal of 80 kg at the moment, standing at 92.40 kg's.

But all in all, with 6 out of the planned 10 goals achieved, I call this a more then okay year for certain.  Next week, the goals for 2024 will be posted, and the motivational rat race can start over, which will contain some hefty miniature gaming goals as well after a few years hiatus...

But for now, I`m just going to enjoy the fullfilment of the goals I obtained this year.

Beware of the Dogs!

 Recently, I have been painting up some mastiff's for my Chaos Dwarf force, where they can serve as unit expanders by adding one or two to the ranks of warriors.

But I also painted them with the idea of getting back to some solo gaming in the coming year.

As I have been looking at some scenarios to play, these fierce dogs will become enemies of the heroes, by replacing a model left or right, yet retaining the scenario's original monster's statistics.

I can`t say to much yet about those projects, as they are still in their very early stages, but for now, here are eight fierce wardogs for the Dawi'Zharr ranks.

Hope you can run fast!

Unboxing GGG 1/8th Lunamaria Hawke

 Boy, was I suprised a couple of months ago that there would be an actual scale upcoming of my uberwaifu Lunamaria Hawke.

Okay, that was before the new movie that has been announced for january, so it makes a bit more sense, and also an opportunity for maybe a new model or two of her.

But part of the GGG (Gundam Girls Generation) comes this 1/8th scale Lunamaria in swimsuit, produced by MegaHouse.

So let's umbox this lovely lady in this video:

 

 

 

A what a great figure for the final unboxing of the year, with a fitting clothing for the season lol.

The Haul Report 384: mostly Manga!

 The day before christmas, but it feels like it came early.

Because this week, I have a nice stack of manga and then some from a variety of sources.

The first set of books came through Archonia for my monthly My Box system, with the latest volumes of My Dress-up Darling and My Hero Academia.

But as I finally got to the new Akiba store the past week, something long overdue by a month or 6, I took advantage of their 3+1 chirstmas sale to pick up these books, basically getting one of the Slime volumes for free as a result.

A pop by in the Nendo Addicts store also fixed me some of my GunPla love, with the elegant F91 in HG scale now in my collection... and the backlog growing.

 

 

So this has been an epic haul week for certain to round out my purchases for myself this year.

 

Which okay granted, is only for a week hehehe...

On the Painting Desk 261: a monstrous week!

 Right, some discipline has been forced upon myself for the past week!

Putting aside FF14 a little (but not much) I went in and brushed away on my projects before a backlog formed to much.

The first thing I did was finish off the mastiffs, and based them all together with the lone Greatsword that has been standing there for 2 weeks now, so that those projects could be finished for this month.

With them rounded off, I turned my attention on the Fomoroid, laying down his entire first layer of colours on the model.  In addition, the Alchemical Monstrosity also got painted up for a few colours already, namely those it shared with the Fomoroid, because two birds to a stone as they say after all.

With a week of holidays now coming up, albeit due to those holidays a very busy one, I never the less hope to get the Fomoroid all the way to the "just need to base" part, but that will depend in large on my Red Mage as well hehehe.

Maybe I should look around for a suitable model to take a Red Mage into some solo gaming adventures next year, Rangers of Eorzea does have a ring to it ;-)

The Goblins are revolting!

 Well, it has been a LONG time, but I got a solo game in at last.  

And I opted for the One Page Rules game Age of Fantasy: Skirmish.

The reason being I had all the models available painted, it doesn`t need a big table, and I could put down enough scenery for an intresting game on a 4'x4' area.

The Goblin slave tribes have suddenly gotten it into them they can overthrow their Havoc Dwarf overlords, and a small warband is send out to prod the defences around their territory.  But they encounter a patrol of the Havoc Dwarfs, who quickly decide to decimate all ideas... and goblins!

The forces for this game have been set at the recommended 150 points to get a hang of the rules, for which I used the basic One Page rules, and the AI generator rules.

For the Havoc Dwarfs, it is a small and elite warband.  They are led by an Iron Champion and his great weapon, together with his Bull Centaur bodyguard.  Three warriors are in the patrol, supported by a lone handgunner.  Finally, to quell the revolting goblins, a flamethrower is accompanying them.

The Goblins on the other hand don't have to shabby troops either, for goblins that is.  Under the guidance of their Goblin Leader and his Pet Cave-beast, the little band consists mostly of archers, with two units of three each, I just used double based models to make the band look bulkier then it actually is.  Amonst them, an Assassin is looking for his prey, while a Shroom-Sniffer makes up the final member of the band.

Setting up 24" apart, the hunt for the goblins begins, while the plucky little guys just will try and gain their freedom!  With the lay of the land placed down, a 2 was rolled for the objective markers, so three where placed on the field, represented by the smaller statues.

 

 

 Both warbands deployed on their halves, 24" of bloody battlefieldness seperating them, and the slaughter could commence.

The Goblin archers didn`t have their bows trained, as both units loosened volleys, all missing their shots.  The handgunner replied to the volley, but he also misses his shot.

Apart from movement, there wasn`t much going on in turn one for the rest, as the forces moved closer, and both scored the objective near their deployment zone, even though the Bull Centaur is coming close to claiming the second one.

In the second turn, the flamethrower opened up on the assassin, stunning the sneaky goblin.

 

 

The shroom-sniffer reached the middle objective first, but is charged by the Bull Centaur.  The might beast misses his attack though, and in return, probably scared by it's appearance, the shroom-sniffer stabs a hole in the sky.

 

 

 The goblin archers are more succesfull this turn, putting the handgunner down with their volleys as the other group does hit the flamethrower but fail to penetrate his armour.

In the center, the goblin leader charges in on the Bull Centaur, but managing only one hit which glances of the heavy armour, he receives a wound in return from the beasts great hammer.

And so turn two comes to an end, with the central objective now heavily contested, and the Iron Champion standing ready to join in that skirmish.

Charging the goblin leader, he smacks him for the remaining two wounds on his Tough buffer, meaning the plucky guy is now in danger of being taken out due to the AP of the champions weapon, his returning hit bouncing of the layers of plater of the fierce warrior.  In desperation he charges the champion himself, and actually causes two wounds on him.  The champion strikes back, but fails to knock the little guy out, or even stunning him for that matter.

The Bull Centaur and the shroom-sniffer continue their battle, the mighty beast stunning the goblin.  This causes the assassin to come to the aid of his companion, but as he misses all his attacks, he is actually taken out by the Bull Centaur.  This must have been the lowliest assassin the goblins could muster to bring to battle.

 

 

On the flank, seeing their centre smacked around, the goblin archers take their revenge however by taking the flamethrower out of action with some well placed arrows to it's fueltank.

 

 

In the meantime on the other flank, the other group of goblins charges the warriors that had approached, and in a flurry of attacks and bad saves, two of the warriors fell to the revolters.

The handgunner tries a sneaky shot at the goblin leader, but misses again.

So with the last turn about to start, the Chaos Dwarfs have suffered more casualties, yet look in a better position to win the game as they have a stronger, and better armoured, presence at the central objective.  if only that measly shroom-sniffer would fall...

In the leader duel, the Iron Champion hits the goblin leader, stunning him.  As the Bull Centaur and the shroom-sniffer continue to battle, they don`t manage to take one or the other down, keeping the objective contested.

On the far flank, the lone warrior takes out one of the archers, but this won`t effect the battle as he keeps being locked away from the objective.  

The other archers try to shoot down the Iron Champion, and while managing to wound his last Tough bonus, can`t take the mighty warrior down.  

This means it all comes down to the handgunner, if he can finally hit something and take down the shroom-sniffer, the battle would swing towards the Chaos Dwarfs on the final moments... and he does what he does best, missing his shot.

And so the battle ends in a draw, all due to the valiant efforts of a lone goblin who just refused to go down to the mighty swings of the Bull Centaur.

 

 

The goblins can claim moral victory though, losing their assassin and an archer versus the flamethrower and 2 warriors...

So, these rules are okay for the occassional small skirmish game against myself in the evening, all in all this battle took about an hour to play out, which is perfect for those evenings to be filled.  Expect some more Age of Fantasy solo gaming as such in 2024.