The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings must Die

 So the final instalment (normally) in the Uthred of Bebbanburg story, and it was released this year as a movie, streamable on Netflix overhere.

So me and Noshi sat down for some good viking age violence!

When Edward of Wessex lies on his dying bed, Anlaf, a viking from Irland, arrives in Northumbria.  Lady Eadgifu and her youngest son Edmund flee to Bebbanburg as no heir had been named by Edward, and now his sons take up arms for succession, as Aethelstan is about to attack his younger brother Aeflward, Uthred making plans to prevent this.  But a prophecy has been spoken that "seven kings must die" in order for England to become united at last.

At Aegelesburg, Uthred arrives right before the arrival of Aethalstan, and as Aelfward surrenders peacefully he is never the less killed by his brother, who has fallen under the influence of his advisor and lover Ingilmundr.  Ingilmundr crowns him King of the Saxons as a result to the dismay of Uthred.  he starts his reign by forcing baptism and demanding tribute from all the Northumbrian, independant, kings.  uthred discovers that Ingilmundr actually wants to have Aethelstan killed, as he is the son of Anlaf.  He captures Ingilmundr at Bebbanburg, but as Uthred is himself captured his son Osbert surrenders the castle and Uthred is cast into exile.

Found by the Danes, Uthred is brought to a gathering by Anlaf where he is forming an alliance against Aethelstan, and as Aethelstan invades Scotland to force an alliance, Uthred is send out to assassinate him.  But he brings the news to Aethelstan instead, and convinces him to right his ways and fight the impending assault on his throne, with Uthred taking command of the army unofficially.  Following the trail of murder Ingilmundr has caused, including the common people of Bebbanburg, the armies face off at Brunanburh.

Outnumbered, Uthred devised a plan to turn the line undetectable, allowing their cavalry to break the far more imposing and outnumbering enemy army, killing the sons of the kings in the process and ending the lines of succession.  After the battle and Ingilmundr's execution, when they gather in Bebbanburg, six kings have died as Uthred, gravely wounded, has Aethelstan unite England by bending the knee and handing the lands of Northumbria to him, before visions of Walhalla and his fallen friends come to him.

It is left unclear what his final fate was, but it is thought as the unofficial king of Northumbria, now seven kings have died and Aethelstan unites the english, becoming the first great king of England in history.

So this was a good movie, and an epic conclusion to the highly enjoyable series that ran for several seasons, well worth the watch!

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

 No no no no no, they should've ended the series with the excellent The Last Crusade, because if The Cystal Skull was bad, this one is downright bland and boring.

And considering a cast with Harrison Ford, Antonio Banderas and Mads Mikkelsen, I would say that is quite an achievement on it's own.

It starts in 1944, when nazi's (really, I lost count how many times that word has been uttered by Indy in this movie) capture Indiana Jones and Oxford archeologist Basil Shaw in the hunt for the Spear of Longinus.  The spear is a fake, but the german astrophysicist Jurgen Voller claims to have found Archimedes Dial, which is rumoured to allow for time travel.  It is lost in a river though during the escape, but Indy has managed to claim a piece of the dial never the less.

Twenty five years later, as he retires from his college job, he is visited by the late Shaw's granddaughter Helena.  He tells her her grandfather became obsessed with the dial, but as they go and retrieve Indy's half, associates of Voller attack them.  Helena runs of with the piece, and turns out to be an antiques smuggler trying to sell it off at a black market auction in Morocco.  Indy intervenes at the auction, but Voller and his men also appear and take the artifact with them.  

They chase them to Greece and guided by Shaw's research go dive for the second piece of the dial, but as Voller arrives they flee to Sicily where Archimedes resided during his lifetime.  With the instructions found in the shipwreck, they locate his tomb and as such the second part of the dial.  Voller though takes the second part and activates the dial, causing a time fissure to open.  Following them in, they end up at the siege of Syracuse.  They learn Archimedes has created the dial to have visitor's from the future come to that moment and aid in the siege, and as the fissure starts to collapse they return to their own time, where Indy reunites with Marion.

So yeah, this was a bad movie, period.  The magic of Indiana Jones really has ran it's course, so please stop diluting it with making more of this type of things...

Demon Slayer: To the Hashira Training

 Movienight with the Dolly, and as we had free tickets we went to the Kinepolis in Antwerp, selecting the Demon Slayer movie they aired this weekend.

 

 

Now, this is a compilation movie, bundling the finale of the Swordsmith arc together with the avant-premiere of the first (extra-long) episode of the upcoming Hashira training arc.

 

So after we relive, and very impressively on a huge IMAX screen, the defeat of the Upper 4 and Nezuko's adaption to sunlight, we get what we came for: the new arc!

 

 

It begins with the Wind and Snake Hashira's following a demon into an abandoned castle, making short work of it's cronies.  They briefly come into the Eternal Castle though, which allows the demon to escape as they return to discuss their findings.  During this meetings, they also learn more about the mysterious marks that manifested on Tokito and Kanroji during their fights with the Upper Moon's, and how tanjiro might be the catalyst for them appearing.

 

Talking Tanjiro, he is recovering in the Butterfly mansion as his friends Zenitsu and Inosuke return from their missions.  The Hashira have decides to strengthen the demonslayer corps by starting to give training by themselves, including the young heroes.

 

This plan was forged, albeit without the Water Hashira Tomiaku who leaves the meeting, as they know that Muzan will come to try and take Nezuko.  he wants to absorb her in order to gain her powers of living in the sunlight, something he hasn't been able to do for a 1000 years.  And that training will be so rigorous, even Tengen is recalled from his inactive status to help out in preparing the youngsters for the upcoming battle!

 

 

So, what to say, Demon Slayer on a huge screen of the theatre is just freaking awesome!  Now to wait for a few weeks until the next arc actually begins.

On the Painting Desk 270

 Well, not as much progress this week as I'd liked, as I had to pick up and get used to my car, the first one in over 20 years that I'll be going on the road with.

The good thing being it will allow me for more tournament plays and flea-market hunts though for hobby stuff.

But that meant I didn't get round painting all that much, though while not in the video, I did put together Cyreni's Razors, whom I want to get up and running for the Underworlds tournament in June.  Talking tournaments, I ran my first game with the other Idoneth warband, the report can be found a few days back on this blog.

What I did manage to paint though this week is some colours on the first layer of Skaeth's Wild Hunt, as well as minor advances on the Daemonsmith and Akhelian King.  I'm really going to try and make serious progress on this Daemonsmith the coming week though, to get that Mordheim warband ready at last.

Let's see how it goes and check back next weekend!

The Haul Report 389

 Time for sharing some loot again, and it has a good chunk of anime in it this time!

First of all, my parcel from TokyoCatch arrived and contained this lovely lady.

Yeah, I liked her, and thought she was sweet on the eye, hence I went all out to capture her in the crane games.

My MyBox from Archonia also arrived, giving more reading pleasure as it contained the following books this time round:

A couple of small enveloppes arrived at home, granting some more cards from the Date A Bullet expansion as I keep edging closer to completing the series.  Heck, who knows if I score some big sales I might go for the very expensive signed cards to complete it fully, but no promises there with a lot of other expensive hobbies to pay for.

I also did some treasure hunting this period, visiting the local Kringwinkel as I ran out of novels to read, and looked around a bit for more fun stuff.  You can see the result of the little hunt in this short video:

And then there was this cute little mustard glass, as the pot of Dijon mustard had finished, and yeah, considering it's french, so are the Pokemon's names on them.

So all in all, some fun stuff to go round this time.  Now to start budgetting for the Bring and Buy at the wargame club in march, so you probably won't see an instalment appear before then, but (hopefully) it will be a big one then!

The Alchemical Monstrosity

 Well, due to the lack of a better name, and the fact I intend to use this beastie in the Frostgrave solo scenario of the same name...

... if I ever actually get round to that.

The model itself I'm not entirely sure, but I believe it comes from the Clan Wars Shadowlands Horde range.

 

Paintwise, I basically used colours as I went along painting other things, so it ended up a brown skin with a fleshy underside, and some highly contrasting blue and green details.

 

Now, it is a cool nice beastie, and I look forward to facing it!

Trying out a Nemesis deck for Elathain's Soulraid

 So, coming in april I'll be attending a tournament in Halle, nearby Brussels, and I will be taking Elathain's Soulraid to the party.

As the tournament is the Nemesis format though, which I haven't played so far, I went out to build a deck pulled from Elathain's rivals deck, and combined with Force of Frost from Deathgorge.

The idea being pretty simple, as both decks share quite a few objectives that need the same conditions, that would mean I would need to remember less things for myself, and which things *might* still come out of the deck as a whole.  As a result, this is what I put together for it, a deck build around as few objective holding as possible due to the fragile holding power of the warband, and more around taking the fight to the opponents side, ai;ing for ganging up strikes:

Objectives - Surge (6) for 1 glory point each

Break the Ice - Force of Frost

Cold Blooded - Force of Frost

Surging Tide - Elathain's Soulraid

Speed of the Flood Tide - Elathain's Soulraid

Merciless Raiders - Elathain's Soulraid

Taker of Souls - Elathain's Soulraid

 

Objectives (6)

 

Chill of the Grave - 2 glory points - Force of Frost

Frozen Fate - 1 glory point - Force of Frost

Utter Isolation - 2 glory points - Elathain's Soulraid

Dead or Doomed - 3 glory points - Elathain's Soulraid

Tides of Death - 1 glory point - Elathain's Soulraid

Unseen Menace - 1 glory point - Elathain's Soulraid

 

This objective set allows me to score, bar the points from taking the enemy down to score most of them actually, a good 16 glory points in total (in theory of course).

 

Gambits (10)

 

For the 10 Gambits, I went with cards that either boosted my troops defensively, are able to get me some Ice tokens (for other cards) and some modest milling included (for sheer annoyance), as I know Elathain will be my main puncher, which isn't the most spectacular in the game so he will need any boost he can get.

Force of Frost: Icy Foreboding, Frozen to the Spot

Elathain's Soulraid: Brain Barnacles, Cloud of Midnight, Fury of the Storms, Phantasmal Forms, Shifting Currents, Spinefin Toxin, Terrornight Venom, Crushing Pressure.

Upgrades (10)

Finally the gear for the warband, again aiming at survivability mostly, because like I said my objectives are orientated to getting to the enemies side and cause havoc in a true raiders style.

Force of Frost: Blizzard Darts, Armour of Ice, Chasm Key, Frostwyrm Cloak, Frozen Heart

Elathain's Soulraid: Armour of the Cythai, Sanguine Pearl, Unstoppable Fury, Born from Agony, Hunter of Souls

Boards (2)

The final choice to make is which boards to take along.  I went for one of the recent Deathgorge ones, the Glacial Tomb, as I love that artwork, but also the Cursed Oubliette / Soul refractor one that is legal due to a rerelease in the starter set, but a lot of people don't seem used to be playing on this old school board.

So there we have it, the deck to try out and get used to playing...

Now of course, I would need to try out that deck preferably, and so I went to Outpost to meet with the Antwerp player group and get a first game in, to learn the warband (vastly different from my psycho girls of Morgwaith's), how to pilot the little pink fish, and get a first feel for the deck.

Facing me where the Chaos Warriors of Khagra's Ravagers and the Daring Delvers deck, piloted by Peter VDB, meaning I would have some hard-hitting, high toughness opponents against me.  I went out heftly out of the gates, taken down the spellcaster of the warband and scoring two glory cards: one for having three charge tokens in my warband, and one for taking down an enemy in enemy territory, after attacking his deck as well as both milling cards where in my opening hand.

Sadly, while turn 2 started well by taking down Khagra herself (but using to much attacks for getting her final wound to my liking), I didn`t manage to get points in that round, as he moved out of his own half to desecrate objectives at the end of his first turn with two warriors, and this resulted in his band being Inspired as well.  Fuirann was the first to fall on my side, and as he grabbed some glory he lead by the end of the second turn.

In the final turn, I went into move and try to score objectives, as I had some good cards including Dead or Doomed for the end phases, having traded in two surges as he didn't seem to go on my half anymore.  But my attacks kept failing miserably, and when Tammael went down, I knew I couldn't win anymore.  Never the less, thanks to my fishy, I actually grabbed 6 glory points in the final end phase, resulting in a 14-10 defeat.

If the second round had allowed me to score at least one of the surges, it might have been a totally different story, but while I have a warband with no 3 damage hitter and rather frail defences, they never the less proved to be a fun bunch to pilot.  Now to fine tune in future gatherings the playstyle and get more out of the fish (even though he did his job by early support, his toxin and scoring points in the end), I might have used it perhaps a bit later to be more disruptive.

On another note, more games where being played as well, on this cozy gathering.  First the Shadeborn took on the Stab-Ladz (7 - 6), while the second game between the Looncourt and Magore was still in full swing when I had to leave for the tram, but it seemed Magore had the upper hand at that point.

Until the next gathering I can attend for more Underworlds goodness!

Classic Wood Elf Treeman

 So time for a golden oldie I recently finished painting up.

Okay granted, he was to become part of a full new Wood Elf army I wanted to build for TOW, but the calendar will keep me limited to only Underworlds events this year, so this plan goes to the side.

But that is why the classic treeman, which I love a lot for the look off, and is full metal, is based on a square 50mm MDF base.

Weighing basically a ton, I'm still not convinced of the newer plastic treemen.  Sure, they are way bigger, but I think they lack the "grumpiness" the old metal treemen had.  Never the less, he will be included in the army (IF it ever materializes) not as a treeman then, but a treekin elder aka unit champion.

But that will be something for the future to look at...

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

 So a new movie came out last year in the Hunger Games series, and to be honest I hoped it to be better then the finale's of that said franchise.

A prequel of the series, it follows a young President Snow, and one can see how he became the man he is in the latter movies: heartache.

Years after when his father died in the first Rebellion between the Capitol and the thirteen districts, Coriolanus Snow is one of the 24 mentors for the 10th anuual Hunger Games, hoping to win the Plinth scholarship that way and restore the Snow name.  Gamesmaster Highbottom states the mentors should look to entertain the viewers though, as ratings of the past years have been dropping.  He is assigned the female tribute of the 12th District, Lucy Gray Baird.

 

She has captured the viewers attention by sneaking a snake down the mayor's dress during the Reaping, as well as singing a protest song, and Snow befriends her by winning her thrust as a sponsor, awaiting her at the train and bringing her food when she is publically caged in the zoo with the other tribunals.  Snow proposes all sorts of new ideas to head gamemaker Gaul, who goes along with his ideas to get the viewing rates up.  

When inspecting the arena for the Hunger Games, a bomb goes off, killing some of the tribunals as well as causing some to escape.  Snow is injured, but Lucy returns to help him instead of running off with the others.  As the games begin, Lucy and her fellow District 12 tribute escape in a tunnel that has been opened by the bombing, hiding there from the slaughter.   When the current president's son dies in the arena as he wanted to mourn the tributes, Gaul unleashes genetically modified snakes into it.  But as Snow sneaked a handkerchief in the tank with her scent, she is the only one not attacked and is declared the winner... now remember in the original trilogy, Haymitch was the only previous tribute from District 12 to ever win the games?  Yeah, I remarked that as well, as now we have another D12 winner, but more on that later.

Snow is confronted by Highbottom with poison he gave to her for the battle, as well as the handkerchief, and as punishment he must serve time in the Peacekeeper force.  Bribing an officer, he is assigned to District 12 however.  He reunites with Lucy and they become romantically involved, even going as far as foiling a planned uprising.  When his excellent performance earns him the promotion to District 2 for officer training, he goes to see her once again.  But as he says something wrong, she loses her trust in him and tries to get away.  He shoots at her, but can`t find her as she seems to have disappeared after she laid a trap for him causing a snake to bite him.  Her fate is left unknown, but in the books it is hinted that she has been erased from the records, and in the original trilogy Katniss hints that there has been another victor bar Haymitch from District 12 in the past.

Snow is pardoned by doctor Gaul, and instead of a life in the military she will train him to become a gamemaster himself, while he is adopted by his late friend Sejanus, whom he actually killed unknown to others, as he visits Highbottom.  The gamemaster tells him the games where originally designed as a joke in a drunken night, but that Snow's father made it a reality, and the blood is on their hands, before succumbing to a poison Snake sneaked to him.

Okay, this was a decent movie, yet I still miss the, for lack of a better term, intensity of the very first movie in the series to be honest.  But never the less, it wasn`t a waste of time to watch, even though the end of the actual Hunger Games felt just to rushed.

On the Painting Desk 269

 A good week for painting, as I cleared out almost all the models I was working on last week, uncliding the "secret one"... which I'll be revealing never the less this week.

Because the TOW plan has been shelved for now, but that is another story.

I did do some changes in the planned projects, putting the Horns of Hashut aside for now and replacing them with the next Underworlds warband from the collection, the Wild Hunt.  This has to do with, after watching the calendar for 2024, I guess UW will be about the only game I'll be able to systematically play for the foreseeable future.  Which isn't a bad thing at all, because it is awesome fun.

For the "work on it in between" like the monstrosity was, I now put down the Akhelian King, because heck, one day that AOS force will be completed!

But the main target for this week is the demonsmith, as I want to round out the Mordheim band as soon as able though.

Check back next week to see how far I gotten!

Voleuses

 Scrolling through Netflix for a movie in the evening, I selected this french action-comedy movie.

Starring the always beautiful Adele Exarchopoulos, it is the story of two thieves that want to get out.

More then just partners in literal crime, Carole and Alex are specialised in the thievery of art and valuables.  But Carole, who found out she is pregnant, wants to quit the job and talks to their handler about this.  They need to flee, before being forced back into the fold, and she accepts one final, simple job before retiring.

Having to travel to Corsica to steal a painting, they recruit Sam, a young, brash girl that will become their getaway driver.  This instignates at first a rivalry with Alex, but slowly they get to accept each other.  When the heist takes place, a multitude of things go wrong as their planner, Abner, didn't know a videoclip was going to be shot at the monastery where it is on display.  Never the less, they manage to steal the painting, and prepare to deliver it to the  handler.

But when Carole arrives, she realizes she will never be free of her grasp, and has Alex shoot her.  As the police arrives in large numbers, a shoot-out ensues, but Carole gets trapped and as she tells Alex that she does this for her to be free together with Sam, Carole is gunned down by the police.

Four years later, Sam has tracked down Alex who now lives a secluded life.  She takes her on a trip, meeting a young 4 year old girl named Raoelle, the name she and Carole would be giving to their baby.  Carole appears, and it is unveiled it was all an elaborate setup orchestrated by her to both give Alex her freedom, take out their handler, and be able to raise the child in peace.

While not the deepest of stories, this was a great fun movie with nice action scenes and some fantastic humour.  Definitly one of the better films I saw the past months!

Blue Period volume 10 - Tsubasa Yamaguchi

 Aaaah Blue Period, how I enjoy thee!

And already we come to the 10th volume of the series, having moved well beyond the excellent anime adaption now, and the finals of Yatora's first year at TUA coming up.

During a talk with Takahashi, he asks him if he likes making art, a question to which he hadn't espected the reply he got, and is seriously taken aback by it.  All Takahashi would really like is that people would get to know the real person he is, and  not just the one based on the assumptions they make judged on his talent for art.

Takahashi has a talk with one of his teachers about the end term project, while Yatora struggles on deciding exactly what he would like to do.  When visiting the school's rabbit pen, Takahashi relaxes, and actually starts to bond with Okamoto, another boy in his class that he never really noticed before, playing Pokemon and the like.  At home, he rebukes his mom for the first time ever, and these internal struggles with himself result in him blowing up the bridges again that he was starting to build.  

When Yatora, kind-off out of guilt initially, asks him out for an all nighter, he is amazed Takahashi actually accepts the proposal.  Arriving in Shibuya, they visit firstly an art exhibition by Konatsu Ono, a famous conceptual artist that will be a guest lecturer at their finals piece presentation.  As they go museum hopping, yatora realises for the first time what it is to really "feel" art.  Glad he could spend this evening out with Takahashi, he has a firmer idea what art is to him, and he changes his end of the year project so late in, deciding to make a painting instead of the 3D structure he wanted to create, working on it throughout the new year.

 

 

And then the reviews are about to begin! To his own suprise, he isn't burned down in the comments.  He has created a painting of the sportsbar he and his friends frequent.  And while Takahashi gets critiqued for his work, he rebukes the teacher to drive home the point behind his painting.  Yet in the end, they all pass and are allowed to progress to the second year of TUA.

Takahashi starts rebuilding the frail bridges he had been building before, the commentary on his piece having opened his eyes somewhat.  Yatora starts looking for a part-time job, and as he calls the number on a flyer he found for an art assistant, he gets his high school teacher miss Saeki on the other end of the phone...

This is kind of what I love about this series, you have your two main characters who are vastly different, and as they walk the path of their career, the supporting cast keeps changing, like it does with real people during the course of the years.  I'm curious what the next instalment shall bring, something I will be finding out in the not so far future!

Cool-headed Hoozuki OVA

 A side story of our favorite demonic bureaucrat, this series consisting of 4 OVA episodes takes place roughly between the first and the second season.

And Hoozuki, our favorite manager / secretary of Hell is back on the job to make sure everything runs smoothly in the underworld.

The OVA's follow the same format of the series, each episode containing a 10 minute short gag story, equalling a chapter from the manga.  And that job starts with finding an idol for a festival in Hell, and stopping with geisha foxes ripping people off.  But running hell in the daily doings is serious work, even going as far as having to find property for new arrivals.  He goes as far as recreate an anime magical girl group to entertain the children.

 

When he forces his apothecary to take up art lessons from Natsubi to better draw his recipies,  Hoozuki joins the lessons as well.  This results in the realisation they share the same facial features though, leading to a heated discussion.  Yet, as they revisit Hoozuki's previous charges, for some reason Natsubi suddenly sees him as a true artist as his artworks seem to come to life.

 

 

During a flower formation at night on the goldfish garden, Hoozuki can't figure out what the fish actually are, and it has to be further investigated.  Visiting heaven, they try and figure out what is going on, with the help of The Blossom Man's old dog Pochi.

 

Small note though if you want to check these fresh and hilarious OVA's out, the fourth one is actually at the end of season 2 instead of season 1, even though taking place between those seasons!  This had to do that is was released a year and a half after the first three, to announce the arrival of the second season.

Aggressive Retsuko season 2

 Time for some more hilarious situations with our favorite death metal loving Red Panda!

You would almost forget she is from the SanRio stable of cute little figures...

Having to deal with her co-workers, she also has her mom to take into account when she sends her a totally outdated style little dress.  Her mom comes over to visit, looking to find her a husband and arranging a date. 

While the date isn't a total disaster, her new collegue is.  While he looks like a nice guy, he sends her constantly messages on her cellphone with rules and regulations of the office which he finds are being breached by her training of him.  At a night out with her friends, she starts pondering to get her driving license.  She confronts him, and tells him how incompetent he actually is.

But then they have to man a foodstall for charity together, as she practices car driving.  But Anai keeps making himself impossible, also harassing her collegues with his rulesmongering.  But when the foodstand fails, he comes to the rescue making a far better yakisoba then Retsuko can.  

 

 

As her moms keep trying to couple her, Retsuko ponders more and more what she actually wants to do in her life.  As her mother sends her to a dating party, she meets one of her collegues there.  When she passes her driving lessons, she wants to tell it to a guy she met in class, Tadano.  But he never came back to the lessons, and later that night in the karaoke she has the discussion about marriage with her acquintances, as well as the day after at work, and realises she should have asked his number.

But he isn't the unemployed slacker he seemed to be, actually being a designer of an AI system for company assistance, and he comes to Retsuko's work to present the system.  When he sees her walking down the street, he catches up with her and go for a coffee.  He still plays the poor person in front of her, and they go for some ramen as he takes her on a date... revealing who he truly is to her.  An idealist that wants to change society by ending people to have to go to work as she falls head over heels for him.

 

 

She even joins him on a business trip, but her boss appears there as well to her dismay.  But that doesn't stop her dreams of a happy future with Tadano at all.  He doesn't want to marry though, even as he declares he wants to be with her forever.  She gets advice on how to handle it from the most unlikely of sources though, her boss Ton, realising it might not work out with Tadano and she takes him to karaoke.

This was another fun series with some good laughs, and it remains a cute drawing style after all. 

Star Trek Strange New Worlds season 2

 The second season of what one can consider "some real Trek" hit last year, and finally me and Noshi found the time to watch it.

And it didn't disappoint, with this pre-Kirk crew, captain Pike being of another breed then Kirk but likeable none the less.

Talking Kirk, he does appear in quite a few episodes, still a lieutenant aboard the Farragut, but to be honest he is like the only minor point for me, and a very minor, yet not per se bad point.  While his character is on point, being young and bold (especially in the time travel episode), the actor for me is a tat to willow-y in build, making him look a bit on the nerdy side instead of the lady swooner that William Shatner portrayed, as after more then half a century he seemingly gained the trait of empathy.  It just "feels" different from the captain I got to know over the decades of the franchise.

When undergoing upgrades, Spock, contacted by La'an, steals the Enterprise to prevent a plot to respark the Klingon - Federation War, and while clandestine this is hailed in thanks with the threat of the conflict with the Gorn Hegemony looming on the horizon.  In the meantime, Pike is recruiting a top lawyer to clear his first officer from the genetic modification charges, as she turns out to be the one that turned herself in.  During the process, she is cleared of charges and can resume duties, but this does mean her secret is out.

La'an, is tossed in the past, and must prevent the formation of an alternate timeline together with that realities Kirk, as they need to save Khan Nonien Sing from a Romulan plot to alter time.  While succesful, even though that timelines Kirk dies (and in this episode, we really see streaks of the Kirk we all got to know and love, I must say, cudos to Paul Wesley's portrayal here) to restore the timeline La'an came from instead of safeguarding his own.  

Talking captain', Pike has hiw own issues with captain Batel, his love intrest and captain of the USS Cayuga.  When he is assigned to investigate a planet where a previous mission failed, he finds one of his deemed killed in action crewmembers from that earlier mission has become a sort of local tyrant king with the help of a shield that prevents a memory whiping radiation.  Radiation is also of an issue when together with this timeline's Kirk, the first time we get to meet the actual character, comes aboard from the USS farragut to aid in the repair of a deuterium facility.

And then we get one of the funniest episodes this season, an actual crossover with... the Lower Decks animation series.  Mind you, the opening being drawn this episode was super.  Boimler, assigned by the USS Ceritos to investigate an ancient portal, falls through and ends on the Enterprise.  Starstruck, he tries to help out while not altering the timeline when an Orion pirate steals the portal.  When they get it back, instead of getting home Mariner comes through looking for him, and they need both their future knowledge on how to get the portal back up and running and return them home.  

While the episode with the Klingon ambassador is more serious in tone, looking back in the past of war of doctor M'Benga, the next episode is a musical.  Hilarious (and again, the thing they did with the opening was amazing), but then it all turns back to grim seriousness.  A colony is attacked by the Gorn, and the USS Cayuga who was there is destroyed.  The Enterprise intervenes, but a line is drawn across the planet, being claimed by the Gorn and making it a hard diplomatic tippytoe situation.  Pike finds Batel amongst the survivors, together with a young engineer called Montgomery Scott who had build a cloaking device to escape the Gorn in a shuttle when his own starship was destroyed.  By the way, Enterprise didn't get a new chief engineer this season after the death of Hemmer last season, so I think we all know who is going to fill the vacancy!

But during the rescue mission, which involves crashing the saucer section of the Cayuga on the planet to destroy a Gorn jammer, part of the crew is hijacked away from teleport by the Gorn, while captain Batel is infected with Gorn eggs.

So that was one heck of a cliffhanger for the season, and sadly season 3 at the moment is only in the process of being filmed.  That means we will still have to wait a long time to see how this resolves, but I for one can't wait for season 3 to air!

On the Painting Desk 268

 Fantastic progress for this week's update!

Because all on the bench are nearly done, by next week these figures will be rounded out and be ready for basing.

Meaning I'm also starting to paint on the deamonsmith, who will become the leader of my Mordheim warband, and some work on the WarCry Horns of Hashut.

Well, that is the plan at least for this week, because I feel a bit of a cold coming up in a household where everyone else has just recovered from a good wintercold, so it'll depend if my number will come up or not.

And maybe, very maybe, I might actually get a game in this week...

The Uncanny Counter season 2

 So our favorite supernatural demonhunting noodle-cooks are back for a second season of South-Korean television.

And the first season was great fun, and not only because of it's unlikely setting!

 

And it starts immediatly with some action, as a school bus is hijacked by a demon possessing the driver.   The Counters rush into action, showing us what exactly they are all about again.  On the other side, the evil spirits are introduced as they wipe out the chinese Counter team, Hwang Pil-Gwang, who is the maffiosio leader of the band, the hawt Gelly who is the resident psycho and weirdo sadist Wong.

They make the move to Korea, intrested in the real-estate fraud that was central to season one.  Realising they need an additional Counter, the team recruits Jaek-Bong who fell in a coma after saving his date from Truck-kun.  Ma Jo-Seok on the other hand is a safety worker that rescued So Moon's grandma, and has become a personal friend together with his pregnant wife, and victims of the season one fraud.

Unfortunatly the evil spirits are trying to eliminate the men behind the scene, and Ma Jo-Seok's wife dies as a result of running into them, breaking his spirit.  But as the evil spirits and the Counters meet, the evil ones see what the Korean Counters are capable off and lust after their powers.  Pil-Gwang comes to the noodle shop, having tracked down So Moon, intend on unnerving him.  Their hide-out uncovered, the  Counters have to move bases and relocate to a warehouse courtesy of Jang-mul.

As Ha-Na and Jeok-Bong go for a jogging trip, in which she runs into her high school crush, Jeok-Bong's power manifests.  He can smell evil spirits and locate them that way.  Chasing the evil spirits, the Counters are split up, miss Chu and Jang-mul being confronted by Wong and Pil-gwang, saved at the last moment by So Moon.  Mo-tak also arrives and together with Miss Chu beat Wong and summon him to Yung.  But Pil-gwang (barely) escapes the same fate as he blackmails So Moon into letting him go by threatening to shoot Jang-mul.

Ha-na and Jeok-Bong face Gelly, costing the latter an eye but Jeok-Bong his sense of smell.  He returns to the village feeling himself useless, but the other Counters convince him to stay on the team with the help of his father, and his smelling power returns as well.  Pil-gwang and Gelly though learned that the pregnant lady they killed was a friend of the Counters, as Ma Jo-Seok steals a firetruck to go after the man he believes killed his wife and unborn child.  He ends up in jail, but as he tries to commit suicide an evil spirit is attracted to his rage.  It cannot possess him as he hasn't killed anyone, but latches onto his innerself.  

Unremorsefull at his trial, Ma Jo-Seok is kept in jail, and is visited by Pil-gwang as we learn more about his involvement in the residence fraud, and he sensed a spirit in Ma Jo-Seok.  He comes to tell him the (twisted in his favor) truth, in the hopes of kindling the spirit even more.  As they chase Gelly in a warehouse, they learn they where involved in the fraud, and that they have been betrayed by one of the others on in it.  It turns out the Red Roses criminal organisation is behind the fraud, headed by Chung-Jae, the second in charge of the fraud and the one that killed Min-Ji, albeit controlled by Pil-gwang... and not dead from a car accident as is publically believed.

Miss Chu in the meantime takes care of a small time criminal, who was her first "save" as a counter when he was being bullied, yet now became a bully himself.  Pil-gwang and Gelly revisit Ma Jo-Seok, fuelling his rage ever more.  He breaks out from jail, going after mr Park.  But his humanity keeps the evil spirit inside him still in check, preventing it from making him do his first kill and become ever more powerful.  But he kills his target in the end, Mr Park whom he thinks is still the murderer, and the spirit can take full possession of him now at last.  So Moon can nearly summon it, but Pil-gwang intervenes and whisks Ma Jo-Seok away.  In Yung, they learn that if Jo-Seok and Pil-gwang would merge, a complete evil spirit will manifest, far more powerful then anything the Counters encountered so far. 

Pil-gwang reveals to Ma Jo-Seok the true killer of his family, Chung-Jae is still out there, as Gelly realises Pil-gwang has abandoned her as she is seemingly no longer usefull to his plans.  As she seriously injures ha-na's crush, she is almost banished by Ha-Na but Pil-gwang comes to her rescue, not out of loyalty but because he wants to absorb her powers for his own.  Miss Chu is captured by the boy she saved long ago, as he wants to prove his loyalty to the crime syndicate, but Mo-Tak saves her.  The team goes after Ma Jo-Seok, who entered a hotel, where they walk into a trap laid by Pil-gwang.  Gelly strikes Moon down, erasing the moment of his rebirth from his memory and putting him back into a coma, as Jang-mul comes in to save the Counters, machine gun blasting.

In Yung, his "handler" Wi-Gen is trapped now in the White Ground, where she must find So Moon's soul and reforge their contract in order to return his powers.  But she can't find him, as he isn't actually in a coma, something Ha-Na finds out by entering his mind.  At the port, Mo-Tak manages to arrest Chung-Jae, while Ha-Na faces off Gelly again.  Locking her in a container, the blinded Gelly can't locate ha-na, who thanks to her training of her other senses can easily punch the psycho blonde around and summon her to Yung.  Ha-na manages to bring So Moon back, but he doesn`t strike a new contract with Wi-gen, instead returning out of his own free will to the Counter life.

With both Gelly and (unknown they are back) Moon's powers gone, Pil-gwang decides to go to plan B and absorb Ma Jo-Seok's powers instead.  But Pil-gwang is no match, and Ma Jo-Seok sets out to hijack the prisoner transport that carries Chung-Jae.  he nearly strangles his mother against his will, but the Counters luckily intervene.  Pil-gwang lures Ma Jo-Seok to the television station as he brings Chung-jae's decapitated head, and revealing he was behind the fraud all along.  He quickly snaps Pil-gwang's neck and absorbs him, but in doing so the spirit inside Pil-gwang takes over the one controlling him and making Ma Jo-Seok his new vessel.  

Now a complete spirit, Yung orders the Counters not to try and summon him, but eliminate him all together, something So Moon does not agree with.  He knows Ma Jo-Seok is still in there, and wants to save him.  And when Mo-tak's partner is seemingly killed, the good in Ma Jo-Seok heals him from the brink of dead, proving So Moon's hunch.  The evil spirit knows though where they hide, and he attacks their base.  So Moon wants to sacrifice himself to take the spirit down, but the other Counters won't abandon him, and So Moon enters his mind.  In there, he needs to fight the spirit of Pil-gwang, and on the verge of being defeated by the evil being, a light starts shining as Ma Jo-Seok's spirit intervenes, and So Moon actually manages to summon Pil-gwang out of the body.  He goes to look for Ma Jo-Seok, finding him in the crumbling realms of his thoughts.  But So Moon convinces the Yung to keep his promise and he can briefly see Min-Ji again in the spirit world, before returning to jail to serve a long sentence, strengthened by the thought of her.

In the aftermath, So Moon goes to Europe for six months to train Counters there, even finding Wi-gen's daughter.  And when he returns, they go back to business as usual...

Okay, so it was fun, BUT... a lot of rules are bended and even broken about spirits and Counter powers compared to season 1, creating plotholes.  Also, no matter how villainous Pil-gwang might be, he is rather two dimensional compared to the villain of season one.  Was this a good season, sure, but it just has those little issues that don't make it as awesome as the first one was.

Oh well, time to go cook some noodles now I guess!