The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

 Well, guess it's time to finally catch up on all those Marvel and DC thingies, and that is a LOT I still need to watch.

So totally at random, I began with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which follows on End Game (and which I haven't watched either).

Six months after receiving the shield from Steve Rogers, Falcon stops Batroc and his terrorist group above Tunisia.  But he struggles with the legacy of the shield, and decides to hand it over to the government instead.  But they use this to announce a new Captain America, John Walker, much to the fury of Bucky Barnes.

As Barnes and Wilson travel to Munich to stop a terrorist group called the Flag Smashers, led by Karli Morgenthau, the new Captain appears but the Flag Smashers make good their escape.  He wants to work together with the duo, but they refuse in turn to do so.  Barnes introduces Wilson to Isaiah Bradley in Baltimore, another veteran of the Super Soldier serum, and who fought the Winter Soldier during the Korean War.  As he refuses to give information of other serum recipients, they turn to none other then Baron Zemo instead.

He agrees to help them and escapes jail, to travel with the duo to Madripoor and seek for the Power Broker.  He is rumoured to have hired former Hydra scientist Nagel to recreate the serum, and together with refugee Sharon Carter they learn Karli stole 20 vials of the serum that he made.  The Wakandans also arrive a bit later, out to seek Zemo for the killing of their king T'Chaka and make him pay.  Wilson catches up to Karli, but Walker intervenes as they talk, throwing it all into chaos.  Zemo destroys most of the serum in the ensuing fight, before he is arrested by Walker.  When Walker's friend Hoskins is killed in the crossfire, he enrages on one of the terrorists, killing him with his shield before the eyes of all the people in the street.

As Zemo is handed over to Wakanda, Walker is discharged from his role and the army.  Wilson in the meantime, deciding there can be no black Captain America, retreats home to repair the family boat.  But he changes his mind and starts training with the shield, as the Flag Smashers plan an attack together with Batroc on the GRC conference in New York.  Together with Barnes, Carter and Walker, Wilson, now having taken the Captain America name, stopping the attack.  Carter reveals to Batroc she is actually the Power Broker, killing him.  Later on she also kills Karli, as Walker receives a new uniform and codename after the incident: US Agent.  Barnes makes his ammends as Carter, her identity still secret from the others, receives a pardon from the government, rejoining the CIA.

Not to bad of a series, mostly focussed around the problems Wilson sees should he become the first black Captain America, and the struggles of Bucky for his past acts.  But it wasn't to shabby to get going in these series I guess, onwards to the next!

My Home Hero

 How far would you go to protect your child?

Because that is the whole idea of this highly enjoyable anime series!

 

Tetsuo Tosu is a normal salaryman, when one day he meets up with his daughter Reika for lunch.  He learns that her boyfriend, Nobuto, is physically abusing her, and he tails him one day.  When he is inside Reika's appartment, Nobuto arrives and he hides in the closet, overhearing him telling others he will extract more money from her before getting rid of her.  He bursts out of the closet, killing Nobuto with a ricecooker.  Together with his wife Kasen, they decide to get rid of the body.

Almost caught by Kubo, one of Nobuto's friends, he boils the body to a smaller mass in the bathtub, transporting it inside a suitcase.  Being followed, they manage to mislead Kubo and his band, before burying the body in the garden.  But they return, capturing Kasen and abducting Tetsuo on his way home.  Bound on a chair, a man called Kyoichi beats him and threatens to kill him.  tetsuo convinces Kyoichi to let him live, and help him out finding Nobuto who the cronies think has just eloped with the money.

 

 

Tetsuo works with Kyoichi against a deadline, his life on the line.  They learn Nobuto ripped off his own gang, but as they do a job for the club owner Kyoichi is wounded as they flee.  Tetsuo is forced to film a confession that he killed one of the gang members, as insurance of him telling on the gang's actions to the police.  He and Kasen decide that their best means of survival is convincing them Nobuto is still alive, trying to fake it with video material.

Back in a club, he accidentally meets Nobuto's father, as back home they manage to unlock Nobuto's phone.  But Kyoichi's gang suspect it is a fake, and he visits Tetsuo and Kasen at home.  Kasen gives him a laxative to his coffee though, as Reika passes by her home.  Kyoichi leaves a note in her shoe to contact him, as Kasen learns he wants to kill Tetsuo.  Kyoichi is more and more burried in staged evidence by Tetsuo, causing the mob leader Takeda to restrain him and make due with him.  

But Kyoichi escapes barely, piecing together the events that led to him being framed, phoning Nobuto's father and explaining his theory.  Matori goes to Reika's appartment, coming face to face with Tetsuo who is wracked by guilt for a father losing his child.  But soon they come to blows, as Matori tells Tesuo Reika is unimportant, enraging Tetsuo.  But as he thinks of his child, Matori stabs himself in the stomach with a kitchen knife, telling Tetsuo if he doesn't make it back, they will know Tetsuo was the cullprit.  He manages to evade discovery, and burries the body in the woods.

Now this was an intense story for certain, and a great anime to boot.  HIGHLY recommended, and yes, I guess every father would go that far to commit murder to protect his child...

On the Painting Desk 310

 Well, it's the holiday season, so that means a bit less painting going on these days.

But never the less, I did manage to make some decent progress in between still.

 

Now I hope to get some things still done in the final days of the year, but I do have the benefit now that I'm starting working (very calm) night shifts, so I'll be able there to at least glue and perhaps undercoat a bunch of figures, even do some of the larger base colours during "the hour of the wolf".

 

 

But that is something I'll have to see how it pans out once a routine is set.

 

For now, going into 2025, it'll be making a paint line for the first weeks to get a good going for the Escalation League, while also trying to make some progress on other goals for the year.

The Haul Report 411: the holiday loot

 So it seems I have been a good little boy this year, as Santa didn't skip my house.

And that means a lot of fun stuff to add to the collections.

First of all, I can finally dabble in second edition Underworlds, though that will be a bit harder to manage play moments as with the new job I can't get out in weekday nights anymore.  But now we can at least study the rules and build some decks, not going in totally blind in the tournament in january.

With the new edition of MESBG now released, my Rohan forces also got a nice boost with this unit box.

The Efteling diorama shelf received some lovely additions as well this christmas, with two of the bigger sets now ready to join the cabinet!

 

 

The day after, they where joined by more sets thanks to my Secret Santa.

 

 

Who also brought the items I had put on my wishlist for adding more dimension to solo gaming, as the table and lamp would mean I no longer need to claim the kitchen tablet or the living room table for small games of up to 60 by 60.  A LOT of Underworlds solo gaming will be recorded in the coming weeks for that purpose.

 

Finally, I also got this little nifty boardgame from my mother in law for the collection.

 

So, a pretty fantastic set of loot obtained this holiday season, now to unpack it all and get going with it!

The 2025 Goals: the Year of the Tournament

 After the Year of Ink and the disastrous Year of the Chaos Dwarf, 2025 will be noted down in my geekiness calendar as the Year of the Tournament.

Even though the name of the year doesn't actually mean that goal will be made, as my abyssmal result of last year showed.

But with higher mobility and Thorin needing just that little less taking care for, I decided (aka was allowed by Noshi) to go out once a while and play some tournaments again.  So as the mainliner goals for the coming year, I've put down 10 tournaments / leagues / game day events, which would equal about one every month with some leeway.  The game system doesn't matter, if I can play it, I will, and as a sort of "side-goal" to that I also want to play at least 50 games in 2025, wether it is casual, at events, in leagues or even solo.

Of course, that will mean getting quite some armies ready for battle as well, so this year I will hopefully get to painting more "focussed" then last year.  To that end, I am putting following forces on the menu to get them finished to a tournament level... yes, it is almost all GW stuff, but the reality is that is where most tournaments are being organised for here in Belgium.  And with the new Underworlds enabling the older warbands, I can happily keep away brushing away at those as well...

 

 

Age of Sigmar: Idoneth Deepkin to 2000 points (currently at 960 points)

Age of Sigmar: Hedonites of Slaanesh to 2000 points (currently at 530 points)

The Old World: Wood Elves to 2000 points (currently at 210 points) 

The Old World: Empire of Man to 2000 points (currently at 424 points)

Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game: The Easterlings to 750 points (currently at 0 points)

Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game: Riders of Rohan to 750 points (currently at 0 points)

Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game: Lothlorien to 750 points (currently at 0 points) 

Warhammer 40k Combat Patrol: paint Aeldari The Fatebreakers: 0 out of 19 figures finished

Warhammer 40k Kill Team: Paint Corsair Voidscarred: 0 out of 10 figures finished

Warhammer Underworlds: Paint up 5 additional warbands

Moonstone Leshavult warband: 0 figures out of 6 finished

Bolt Action Belgian army to 500 points (currently at 0 points)

So that's a serious paint mountain to climb, but if I can get my focus on them that should be do-able.  I'll just need to make sure I won't be butterflying in the paint projects and aim to get them churned out one by one.

 

But there will be one more painting project for this year, which doesn't add to the forces, but to the experience: paint 5 wargame buildings for the gaming table.

 

Of course, that won't be the only goals for this year, as I have an anime challenge lined up once again.  I failed last year's challenge, but for this year I'm going to be catching up on anime's Noshi saw according to her MAL, and that I missed.  Though a lot of drama will be in there as well as I look through her list.  Never the less, that is an amount of 40 anime to watch this year for this challenge.

 

Apart from those, I would like to get the total watched anime tally up to 50, furthering the journey to reach 1000 anime's seen in a year or two time.  Related are of course the manga, and this year I would love to read 30 volumes. Guess that is to compensate for the bad year of volumes read in 2024...

Talking about reading, the rulebook / regular book goal is set rather low this year, as due to above painting goals, there won't be much time for that.  As a result, after contemplating I set the bar at 5 books.

On a viewing level though, I'm sticking with the regular goal numbers of viewing 20 movies and 20 series once again this year, which will be often done when having the paint brushes out, and which as such should be manageable.  And I will be trying to catch up on all franchise series first, like Marvel, Star Wars and the likes, and finally see those Avengers End Game movies for example...  I'm also going to be catching up on a lot of pre-1990 movies at last, because well, backlogs...

 

The final goal, and which becomes actually harder with every passing year as my Untappd gets more and more additions, is tasting 50 new beers.  But there will be more culinary delight, as I'm also wanting to visit 10 new "frituur" this year, which might be do-able if I go often on tournaments and come to new places.  Because you can't play a tournament without some fries afterwards!

So there we have it, the whole list of goals set for the upcoming year and now let's start painting from day one onwards to actually get things done!

The end of the year 2024 goal overview

 And so the year of the Chaos Dwarf comes to a close, and sadly it is a year of great failure.

Due to circumstances, and being sidetracked to often, I didn't keep focus on the goals I've set at the beginning of the year, which led to a lot of "red lines" in the overview.

And this on about every front... for example, the anime goals weren't met, more on that later, due to catching up (at last) on a lot of YouTube battle reports I've been watching, some that where in the watch later list for over 4 years.  Painting goals fell through due to not keeping focus on the year's targets, causing projects to drop off by the side, while in the case of Underworlds more bands where added then actually painted, leaving a bigger backlog then the numbers I started the year with.

Never the less, I did collect my focus a little in the last quarter compared to the september overview, and as a result at least finished SOME goals bar the beer drinking, so let's have a look at the data!

 

First things first, let's be short on the goals of building both a Warmaster and a HOTT force: neither was that first one even started this year, and it might be a while before I actually do, while the second one only saw the completion of a single base.  But more of the reasons for that will become clear when I upload the 2025 goals post tomorrow.

 

So then move on towards the first big goal: paint 250 heroic scale miniatures for my Chaos Dwarf forces.  This failed immensely, with only 48 painted out of 250, and that number was down to 10 as far as september.  In the final quarter, I did pick up some more steam and finished models for the range, but as I said at the beginning, I have been seriously sidetracked.  The Year of the Chaos Dwarf as such has been a huge fizzle.

 

For the Underworlds goal, I'm a bit on mixed feelings.  Certainly, I painted strongly for those, completing 10 warbands this year.  But due to circumstances like buying a whole collection or two, the amount of actually to finish warbands has increased the gap further then at the beginning of the year.  But when a deal comes along you can't pass up...

 

 

I did make some good progress on the planned Idoneth army, ending at 790 points of the 2000 points projected, and for casual games I can add 200 points to the tally due to both Underworlds warbands being in the Legends section. 

So, that's it for the painting section, though it did have some serious influence on other goals.  As I have been going more intense into painting after the summer holidays, having sworn off online games as they just kept wrecking my paint schedule.  But that also meant I was watching, well listening mostly, more to YouTube backlogs (some as old as 5 years in my "watch later" list) on battle reports and game system reviews.  As a result, the anime viewing took a serious hit, not helped with Noshi going in one of her I don't feel like watching spells on top.  Which also kind of reflected on regular series as she was more into MTV shows the last quarter of the year...

I did make it though for both movies to watch and series to watch in the end, although only scraping past the 20 mark for each barely.  The movies ended at 20 movies seen, while the series clocked out at 20 for this year, and so many still on the to finish part.

For anime, the numbers are even worse, my challenge of clearing the backlog failing bit time as I ended at 31 out of the planned 85.  On a positive side, it are older anime's seen now, and we are a few steps closer to the 1000 finished series.  Because in total, I saw 48 anime this year, and agreed that is only around the halfway mark of the projected 100, it still is a nice stack in the end.

The same goes for reading, not enough hot tubs in the year means not enough stuff read.  I did manage to complete the books / rulebooks goal, having read 10 out of the projected 10 pieces.  But the manga fell short of the goal of 25, with 16 volumes read this year, while the fanzines backlog clearing wasn't great either, clocking out on 16 out of the perhaps to far stretched goal of 50.  Still, I hope next year I'll be adding some more to that tally, it will depend on the heavy painting goals I have set myself for 2025... and the free time I will have in between.

The goal of completing the Date a Bullet cards was one I knew from the outset I couldn't reach, as it are mostly the signature cards still missing, and some go over a few hundreds of euros each, a sum I'm not planning on putting down anytime soon, and I obtained 9 cards out of the missing final 19.

But we end on a positive note, as we did achieve the goal of beer drinking.  Honesty obliges me, I suffered from a serious burn-out near the end of the year, which resulted in me barely drinking a single beer, but never the less I did add 121 new discoveries to my Untappd page this year out of the projected 50 for the goal.  Guess that's three years in a row that one gets completed succesfully, and with only a single beer festival attended this year.

 

 

So, not at all a great year goals wise, due to some heavy butterflying on my part.  But when I upload the new goals tomorrow, I'm handling that actually in them, even though it'll mean I won't succeed in all of them!  

 

So stay tuned for tomorrow!

 

 

The Best of 2024

 The last week of the year, so it is time yet again for that most subjective of lists around, namely my personal Best Of list for the past year.

And as usual, with the strange way my brain tends to work, this is a list often people don't agree with at all, guess that's the thing when you read the musings of a weird bloke hehehe.

Now, on the other hand, it has already steered some people to things they didn't know about before, so I guess my broad spectrum of niche intrests does have some merit at times, but without further ado, here we go again for a list of strange choices in what I liked the past year.

Best Movie: We start out with an odd one then: Iris Warriors.  While not the most spectacular of movies, I never thought I would be so touched by a fantasy story told by... ballet.

Best Series: Star Trek Picard s3, a worthy wave-off to a very influential cast from my youth years, and which largely formed me into the man I am today.

Best Music: This would have been I Like the way you touch me by Artemas, that videoclip is so awesome... but then in the last week of November, our "biggest Belgian" made a reappearance on the music scene.  After years from the publix eye, Stromae returned to the charts together with Pomme, and performed My Meuilleur Ennemie, included in the series Arcane, trashing the worldwide streaming charts (and that includes Mariah Carey).  The song is not only fantastic, but a bit of chauvinisme at time is welcome being a Belgian.

Best Book: the 10th volume of the Blue Period manga, it hit some very personal chords with me and caused me to make some personal decisions due to it that I had been mentally struggling with for a long time.

 

 

Best Toy: I am going to put my driver's license here.  While not a toy in essence, it did allow me to enjoy and get more of my toys overall

 

Best Performance: perhaps the hardest one to pick this year, as I can't decide between 2 different personae, so I'll just throw them up all together.  First there is the beautiful Adele Exarchopoulos from Volueses, who like french wine ages gorgeously with the years.  Then there is Antonio Borghi from Supersex, who put down a smashing performance as Rocco Sifredi, the famous adult movie star, in the series based on his way to the top. 

 

 

Best Anime: My Home Hero, due to busy calendar I'll be posting the review soon, but this was finished the last week of december, literally yesterday before I made this list, and wiped the other nominees from the slate.  Because how far would YOU go to protect your child?

 

Best Game: Warhammer Underworlds.  Not only did it bring my first tournament victory ever, it was a great ride with a fine bunch of people.  I'm curious what the second edition will bring as I still have to play that, but the first one will definitly be memorable to me.

 

Best Videogame: Sex & Blood Vampires.  Yes, it is from the 18+ section on Steam, but it actually had an arousing story behind it (again, pun intended).

 

 

Best Wargame Figure: Spinefin.  The little fish brought many a victory in my tournament and casual games over the past year, but also that I opted to paint it pink to go with my little boy's favorite toy, a plastic pink fish.

 

 

Best Trade: that free library I got from my mother in law's theatre group.  We are 7 months down the line now and I am still sorting through the stacks of them.

 

Best Convention or Event: That will be the Underworlds Tournament in Halle, which as mentioned above, after heaps of podiums finally brought that elusive first victory.

 

 

Greatest Disappointment: the massive burn-out that hit me in September, and forced me even to gather all my mental might to go out and play some games with friends.  I never knew that it could be such a dirty bugger, and I have gained a LOT of respect for people struggling with this disease ever since.  I'm not there yet completely, and it certainly rocked over my world, but we are on the way back up. 

And so the year ended with this list, now it is time to look to new things, and be back in 12 months with another collection of perhaps strange choices!

 

 

What I Won in 2024

 So a new year of loot to be grabbed is upon us, by doing cranegames, instagram contests and the likes...

And after two very strong years, let's see how this year will go.

The first wins came on the 17th of January, with two small items from TokyoCatch to combine with the Daki to be send out, that I won at the end of 2024.  So a Studio Ghibli puzzle and a SanRio Cup kick off the overview of this year.

On the 13th of february, Clayman joined the lootpile for this year.  Who doesn't love his manipulative want to be top-of-the-pile demon lord...

He will be joined in the shipping box by this Relax Time Himiko Toga, whom I grabbed on the 25th of february.

And on the 28th of february, this Studio Ghibli lunchbox was added to the loot as well.

 

A short while later, with their Easter specials, I won a mystery figure.  Cheaper to play, but no idea what figure you will be getting, so this is exciting.

Just as exiting is the catch from the 4th of april, I love this Tohka model from Date A Live, and she will end up in the living room cabinets for certain.

On the 8th, Marin joined the party with this lovely My Dress-Up Darling figure.

 

 

Followed on the 11th by the Commander from Chained Soldier in noodle-stopper version.

 

 

 I also scored my very first wargame tournament win ever in my "career" this month, winning the Warhammer Underworlds tournament in Halle.  Apart from the custom made participation token, this also gave me a Tidecaster for my Idoneth army.

 

 

At the 23rd of april, a day after shipping out the anime figures above to me, I caught this Muki Nakano noodlestopper.

To be joined the 3rd of may by Kafka of the immensely popular Kaiju no 8

 

May was a good wargame month, as I took my second victory of the year at the local Games Workshop store, netting me a nice pile of promotional cards, tokens, the deck box AND the coveted glass shard.

 

 

 

At the halfway mark of may, I won a Nino Nakano sports figure.

 

While two days later, the Mist Hashira joined the loot as well.

So I had these shipped out to me as such, only to score another Marin figure the day after.

 

 More hashira joined the loot pile on the 23rd of may, with the Wind hashira Shinazugawa being obtained.

Kicking off June, I got this little thingy I just wanted to have: a Final Fantasy 14 Moogle pillow!

The 6th of june, I added Chainsaw Man to it, an anime I never watched, nor is on my planned to list, but of course knew about so this will end in the trade pile.

And this lovely figure was joined a few days later by an ubercute Hatsune Miku pillow.

On the 17th of july, I caught a figure I really wanted, Kira Yamato, pilot of the Freedom!

Shipping out alongside him is this small, cute Ichika figure.

 

On the 28th of august, it was time to add some Sword Art Online to the loot pile.

And she was shipped out with a second little Hatsune Miku pillow, whom are relatively easy to catch to make the import charges more bearable.

On the 19th of october, a 3 claw machine was gentle, giving me another Ichika for the collection.

Only to be followed about a month later by a "gacha" bunny figure, so I didn't know what I would receive until it got here.  This turned out to be a figure of Super Sonico, nice!

Total value for the loot for this year: 553.00 euro