Babygirl

 THE hype of the end of last year, Babygirl is an erotic thriller described as the next big Basic Instinct and has won a ton of awards.

 

 

And it is just a pile of rubbish, as the audience scores tell a totally different story from the critical acclaims...

 

Nicole Kidman stars as Romy, the CEO of a robot company, and dissatisfied with her sexlife with Jacob (Antonio Banderas).  One day, an encounter with a young man, who turns out to be one of the new interns at her company, stirs something inside her.  His commanding, dominating personae (sorry, he was just a creep to be honest), they meet in a hotel where he let's her be a dog, showing he is the one in power.

 

Their affair gets ever more sexually intense, even with him turning up at her country home, much to her chagrin.  He plays the power game with her, and starts dating Romy's secretary to be able to get back in her house, who knows about her affair.  She confesses it to her husband, though toning it down to a one-night stand after Esme threathens to tell if she doesn't get a promotion.  Jacob runs in on Romy and Samuel, but as he suffers a panic attack, Samuel calms him down.

 

 

He takes on a new job in Japan, and she rekindles her relation with Jacob, though she only able to orgasm by thinking back on the doggy play in the hotel with Samuel.

 

And honestly, this wasn't much of a thrill, barely erotic, and frankly a paperthin pile of rubbish, especially compared to Basic Instinct.  And I'm not talking nudity for that, but there just isn't any suspense or sense of dread in the movie for a thriller...

 

 

Shogun

 Who doesn't like series about samurai, and so let's have a look at this remake from the 1980 miniseries, based on a novel from 1975.

 

 

But do note, more then half the time it is Japanese spoken, so you better have those subs at the ready!

 

It follows the adventures of the english pirate John Blackthorne, who ends up shipwrecked in Japan, and Lord Toanaga, a daimyo at odds with his political rivals.  The series is "historical fiction" in that the characters are losely based on actual historical figures from the time.

 

In the year 1600, after the death of the Taiko, the rule of the land is split amongst five equal regents.  Blackthorne and his crew arrive at Edo (current day Tokyo) after being shipwrecked and captured by the samurai, and quickly comes at odds with the portugese catholic church, Blackthorne being a protestant himself.  The lord of the region, Toranaga, is at odds with the other four regents about the rulings of the area, and they plot to oust him, as Blackthorne is taken to Osaka Castle to meet with Toranaga and the lady Mariko.

 

Toranaga sees in Blackthorne a good companion to sow distrust amongst his rivals, as he knows they are plotting against him and now has been handed a wild card.  Blackthorne in the meantime has learned that the Portugese have a secret military base in Macao, and a rescue is staged to save the englishman from execution by Ishido and the church.  He explains to Toranaga that the Spanish and Portugese have divided the world between them, without any disregard for whoever might live in the asian lands.

 

 

Toranaga and his party escape from an assassination attempt at Osaka Castle, and they break out through a blockade with the help of a portugese Black Ship that has been skimming profits from the silk trade, striking a deal.  Toranaga makes Blackthorne a hatamoto and asks him to train his men in the western tactics of warfare, to give them an edge over the traditionally trained japanese forces.  He accepts to do this, and starts learning the art of cannons to the troops.  But during a visit from one of the other regents agents, Toranaga's subordinate takes matters in his own hands and kills the envoys, making Toranaga realise war is now upon them.

 

Mariko, who has slept with Blackthorne, is forced by her drunk husband to reveal her disgraced family lineage to the englishman.  Still denied to leave Japan though, he rises through the ranks and becomes an admiral and granted a fief for saving Toranaga from a landslide, caused by an earthquake.  As political machinations continue to have him impeached, he invokes the secret Crimson Sky plan to protect the lady Yaechiyo and limit future bloodshed.  His army travels to Edo to prepare for his son's funeral, who died in an accident trying to catch a spy.  Toranaga considers surrendering to limit bloodshed, much to the objection of his subordinates.

 

 

But during the journey to leave the city with the family, it becomes clear that they are all being held hostage.  Mariko sacrifices herself to allow them all to get out of the city, much to the dismay of Blackthorne as they had confessed their love to each other the night prior.  War is declared officially on Toranaga, but at the battle of Sekigahara he becomes victorious...

 

A great series, and a true joy to watch how the politics play out and lines are connected amidst the impressive backdrop of feudal Japan.  if you like historical drama, samurai, intrigue and action, this is definitly worth a watch!

Grant

 Every wargamer has his "military idols", generals and leaders they in someway look up unto, and they try to emulate their "fighting spirit" in their games, even fantasy or sci-fi ones.

 

 

Call it influencers before that became a hype...

 

Now, for me personally, ever since I took an intrest in military history over 3 decades ago, that have always been the Duke of Wellington, B. L. Montgomery and Ulysses S. Grant, the supreme commander of the Union forces in the ACW.

 

So when strolling some streaming documentaries, I came across this 3 episode mini-series (every episode running for about 1hr25) about Grant, and duly sat down to watch it in one go. The series follows the rise of the most unlikeliest stories in the American history, of how a simple, failed in life, son of a tanner becomes even president.

 

After being an underachieving student of West Point, and quartermaster in the Mexican-American War, he starts drinking at his stationing at Fort Humboldt, missing his wife and children, and leading to his resignation.  But when the Civil War breaks out, he is recruited into a local regiment, and proves his mettle at the Battle of Belmont.  He starts rising the ranks, and after capturing Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, leads the Union to victory at Shiloh.

 

At Vicksburg, he truly shows his tactical skills by crossing the Mississippi and when he later combines three armies into a single force at Chattanooga, Lincoln knows he finally has his man to combat Robert E. Lee, the genius general of the Confederate forces.  Grant is brought to the Eastern theatre, promoting him to the rank of Lieutenant General, the previous man to hold that was... George Washington.  Grant takes the battle to the South, with the bloody Wilderness Campaign, and pushes into the southern states as a result.  

 

While he suffers setbacks at Cold Harbor and the Battle of the Crater, his great plan starts to roll in motion.  Pinning Lee in Petersburg to strangle Richmond, his friend Sherman starts his march through the South, gutting it from the inside out, to take Atlanta.  Lee realises his army is spend, signing his surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.  But when Lincoln is assassinated and his successor Johnson makes a mess of things, Grant is elected president.  During his two terms he tries to enact the Reconstruction, only partially succeeding.  

 

After his terms, he travels the world, and while losing all his money, he writes his memoirs together with Mark Twain, securing the financial security for his family before succumbing to throat cancer three days after having finished the final page. 

A fine documentary series, which also looks into the aftermath of the war and what he accomplished then.  Though history often sees him as "The Butcher", a drunk and a corrupt president, these are things often coming forth from misconception and misinformation spread at the time to destable his name.  

A good series, and definitly worth the watch!

Mines of Alost I Warhammer Underworlds underdog token

 Another small sideproject on the painting queue, I finally gotten round the participation gift from the Mines of Alost I, the tournament I won back in january.

 

The token is suited for marking the underdog, and while it is doublesided, I did paint only one side though.

 

 

The colours I picked for this are the classic Underworlds colours harking back to Shadespire, with silver icon on a red background.   However, for the lettering I went with white though, just to add some more contrast to the counter.

 

As such, a handy little marker for during the game, and to make you remember that you are the underdog for card purposes.

 

 

And that means the little tidbits for the game have been painted up now, now to find an event where they hand out nice pillarstyle items for the blocked hexes hehehe...

On the Painting Desk 327

 And there is the white screen again!

 

But this time, it's for an entry in the Golden Hat contest over at Chaos Dwarf Online.

 

Now, the deadline for that is end of may, so I have some time still left on it, the first thing that actually needs to get finished are the Rebel Commando's, followed by as much as possible rank and file for the Escalation League.

 

To that end, I hope to have blasters going by the end of the coming week, and round out the small spearmen unit in order to start painting on a big block of Free Militia.

 

It seems even though 6 weeks for all of that sounds like a lot, it might still end up a close affair...

TSA Escalation League 2025: Round 4 - There is sand in my shoes

 After scoring the full bonus points last round without battling, as my opponent needed to forfait the round, it was time for the fourth battle in the campaign.

 

And facing me would be the Tomb Kings Nehekharan Royal Host of Kristof.

 

 

My force remained the same for round 4 as it was for round 3, but having breached the 1000 point barrier I could finally bring the big guns out: a Mortar and a Great Cannon joined the army, bringing some decent heavy firepower along.  The final 20 points where then spend on magical banner for the Greatswords, with the 15 points costing The Gleaming Pennant, leaving me with 5 points remaining.  And for some strange twist of fate, I started the game in a second place in the Campaign, with a win would propel me to a joint first... together with my opponent for my next round!  Pressure is on it seems...

 

His army consisted of a 7 wound, 5 toughness leader on chariot with his followers, and a huge block of archers, all with the no hit modifiers arrows.  Furthermore, some smaller units where in the force to harass my lines, so prioritizing targets and hopefully rolling lots of hits with the war machines will be the key today.  Moving towards him, not so much... 

... but then the wife crashed in one of her episodes, resulting in me not being able to leave to the game and having to forfeit the game.  It will also prove the end of my League in all probability, as she is currently in a bad state, making planning ahead a real chore and a pain, which isn't fair towards keeping the other players "hostage" for their free time.  This is something I'll have to ponder over the coming days, but in all honesty I fear my Escalation League has come to a close...

 

I'll provide an update on that soon...

The Haul Report 417: Beer and Games!

 Time for another overview, and the stuff we obtained in the past period.

 

And this time, we kick off with some Games Workshop stuff, as my mail order came in.

 

 So talking a trip to the store, I collected some more models for Blood Bowl, with a Star Player and the Bull Centaurs having finally arrived. 

But I also got some models arriving from Fantasy Welt, which should be sufficient to round out the whole Escalation League force of Marienburg now.  

A bit of a special pin find for the Efteling collection, as this is one you received when taking a year card on the amusement park only.

 

 

My Archonia MyBox also arrived, containing a single volume this time, but also a stark reminder I should pick up reading again pretty soon... 

 

A scroll over Vinted brought along some small boardgames to get Noshi back into playing, the Munchkin even being still in the shrinkwrap.  I paid a total of 13.50 for all three of them, so fair dinkum's. 

 

And as she liked getting back into the games, we ordered some more from Vinted.

 

I also obtained some "titbits", with a frame for the "non-Efteling" amusement park pin memorabilia, and some pokerchips to indicate important skills for my Blood Bowl players that have been gained during the league.

 

But there is also that Beer in the title of course, and that is beacuse not only did I get myself a Hedonis gift box, as I loved the look of that glass, but also my Frontaal Beer Club subscription box arrived this week! 

So that has been a lovely period with all kinds of wonderfull for certain!

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Fire & Jade

 In today's review I am taking a look at the Fire & Jade rulebook, which contains all the rules and army lists for the new AoS format: Spearhead.

Basically the (improved) version of the Warhammer 40k equivalent Combat Patrol, this puts the starter boxes (Vanguard as they where called, now relabelled as Spearhead) against each other in some fast paced action.

 

The high quality hardcover contains in the first pages all the regular GW rulebook stuff, like the things you need to play a game of Spearhead, before diving in the details what the Speahead battlepack contains.  Things like the Twist cards are handled and then we get the two battleplan maps for the game.  One is with across deployment, the other shows the diagonal deployment zones.

 

 

And then we go to the huge bulk of the book, the armies.  This contains all the forces that where available upon release of Age of Sigmar 4, but keep in mind some FAQ's have been made recently (like Kharadron getting finally units that return to the table), so you'll need to download those as well for your forces.  This section takes the majority of the book, as there are a lot of sets for Order, Chaos, Death and Destruction, and there are ever more being added as new armies come out.

 

 

The next section are the rules, beginning with the Core Rules which are the same as Age of Sigmar.  This makes Spearhead a good gateway game into it's bigger brother.  The goal after all is to get people play the full AoS, but these rules allow you to enjoy the flavour of your force from early on without having to paint up a 2000 point army to try it out.

 

Then we get the rules for the actual Battles of the system, with the sequences and every one of them explained in some more detail, before we get the glossary of all the abilities of the rules and the forces.

 

So a clean book for a very enjoyable "mini AoS" experience, and one I have been enjoying to play so far.  A great game system for an afternoon of causal playing, with battles taking between an hour and an hour a half to complete, with forces of around 15 tot 30 models.

Halle 2025 Warhammer Underworlds stagger tokens

 So, I finally painted up the stagger tokens we received for joining the Halle tournament back in march.

 

Each participant received two of them, and that made a fun little item to use on the gameboards.

 

 

I decided to paint them up in two totally different styles, one was painted as being "clean" with blue water, nice white marbleish rocks and vibrant green lettering.

 

The other one however, I went for a dark look, with grey rocks, a filthy brown water and brooding red lettering.

 

That way it nicely diverges the balance between good and evil,in my opinion, and made painting both of them nice in between things to do.

 

Now to get some more games in to put them actually onto the board...

Doll's Frontline

 Based on the mobile app game Girl's Frontline, we get an anime series of 12 episodes.

 

 

The premises looked cool: girls with huge guns blasting things.

 

Aaaaaaaaand that was about it for the "good" department.  The story is set in the game, during WW3, polution has led to food and shelter shortages and the world went at war.  Tactical Dolls, or T-Dolls for short, are android girls build to wage the brushfire wars, ran by private military companies.  But one of the companies saw their dolls rebel against humanity, while another company is set out to investigate.

 

But as they are androids unable to formulate complex plans, they still need human commanders to issue their orders.  But the team finds out that the installation of a special AI was the source of the revolution.  They find the needed information, but to safeguard it they split up and each goes into hiding, with a rookie commander tasked to track down the team members before the AI enemy can.

 

 

All we get for the rest are mainly explosions, gunfights and more explosions, which would be okay for me to watch through.  But unfortunatly, the animation is sub-par, average at the best of times, which made it hard to watch.

 

While I doubt it would ever had the premises of a classic, at least some better drawing and animating would have compensated a bit for the weak story of the episodes.  But all this together made me only rate it with a 4 on my MAL account, as I was honestly glad when I struggled through it...

 

Unless you really love the game, don't bother with this though...

Doctor Who Flux (season 13)

 Time for some more Time Lord adventures, and the final season of Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor.

 

 

Numbering only 6 episodes though, it will be followed by a series of specials, more of which when I get to them of course!

 

But first, let's dive into this season, which for the first time since the 80s is one long story instead of episodic in nature, and the title screen is labelled as such as Flux, the overarching title of the season.

 

The Doctor and Yaz meet Dan Lewis, a tradesman from Liverpool who for some reason is being chased by the Lupari Karvanista.  But the Doctor is suffering from visions of the mysterious Swarm, a galaxy devouring force that claims to share a connection to her.  They also meet Claire, a woman from their future, who is tossed back to 1965 by a Weeping Angel.

 

Karvanista tells them his race are actually trying to save humanity from the Flux, a force that is destroying the universe and has Earth on it's path, and in the chaos the Sontarans decide to stage a new invasion on Earth as the Tardis is swept away in the Flux with the Doctor and her companions.  They wake up in an altered past, where the Sontarans have become the dominant species on Earth, but as they manage to destroy the Sontaran shipyard, the timeline resets.

 

 

The Swarm is about to kill Yaz and a man called Vinder, as the Doctor jumps into the Temple, the last remnant of Time, and learns of an incarnation of herself, the Fugitive Doctor, who she can't remember ever having been.  She learns this incarnation is part of The Division, a Time-lord black ops operation erased from memory, in her past.  The Doctor returns to the present, fixing the timestreams, before a Weeping Angel brings the Tardis to 1967.  Here they meet Jericho, a professor investigating the paranormal.

 

Weeping Angels besiege his house, but the Doctor discovers one of them is actually hiding inside Yaz and is the target of the attack, as they want to retrieve it.  The Doctor is captured instead, the others being send back to the village in 1901, as it has been disconnected from time to serve as a sort of prison.  The Doctor is brought before Tecteun, who is her adoptive mother that found her all those years ago on Gallifrey, and the founder of The Division, which also orchestrated the Flux in order to kill the Doctor, for interfering with their plans. 

 

 

Tecteun is disintegrated though when the Swarm arrives, and the Doctor is split into three copies due to a time distortion.  Together with her friends, she goes around fixing the timestream in all her incarnations, as she deposits her lost memories deep inside the Tardis...

 

A great overarching story, that revisits a lot of the Doctor's old enemies, as well as giving us some more knowledge of the "Child of Time" that she is.   Being also the last series of this incarnation, we are now gearing towards a series of specials, that will wrap up this tenure and bring forth the next, 14th, Doctor, so time to binge some more classic british sci-fi!

 

 

 

 

 

 

TSA Escalation League 2025: The Golden Flute

 The second war machine to finally join the line-up has been completed!

 

Now that we broke the 1000 points barrier in the Escalation League, I finally can take big guns, and after the Mortar I showed earlier, a Great Cannon is added as well to the line.

 

 

The model is a 3D print from the Highland Miniatures Sunland line, and comes with those nicely thematic fishes on top of the barrel as well.  

 

 

I painted it up in the same colour as my Marienburg uniforms for that nice solid, unified look of the army.  Or at least a very colourfull bunch on the tabletop now.

 

 

It will be making it's debut in the battle against the Tomb Kings for the 4th round of the League coming friday, hopefully smashing some of the bigger thingies up instead of blowing itself to high heaven...

 

Now to get started on the round 5 entries...

Blood Bowl match report: Vongalazthag Violators versus Sint Job Sweaters

 Another do or die game tonight, as I really, really need to start winning games in order to remain in the League qualifier reaches.

 

Unfortunatly, that is against a bunch of S4 and S5 Nurgle followers, and to add insult to injury I know I will be flunking a heap of blocks by rolling ones against their foul appearances.

 

 

So that means I will be forced to play that what I fear, the running and passing game with a bunch of Hobgoblins, something that so far has been going miserably.  On the plus side, I recovered my Stabber, who won't be really usefull in this game vs high armoured players, and my Minotaur who will have to hopefully blitz the Rotspawn away early in game... to many "if's" to make a solid gameplan I'm afraid.

 

 

And so, under nice weather conditions, the teams got to the pitch, the Violators opting to receive first. 

The opening drive immediatly KO'd one of the Bloaters, as Numbers collected the ball and made for my right flank in an attempt to force a breakthrough.

 

 

Hot Milky Nipples clashed with his Rotspawn, now that will be some very sour milk if they ever should get in business together...

 

 Seeing the road blocked, Numbers handed off the ball to Dievanons who moved over to the other flank, as a small hole was starting to form there.

 

But the Nurgle Pestigor managed to reach the Stabba, who survived the blitz.  

 

Hot Milky Nipples managed to KO the Rotspawn, meaning the center of his line now got destabilised.

 

 Dievanons was getting a protective cage around him, as the Chaos Dwarfs now crossed the halffield line in a solid block.

 

 But another Pestigor blitzed in, thumping the stabba over and have the ball fall on the floor, only to have Numbers go and pick it up again.

 

As the Chaos Dwarfs did their best to protect the Hobgoblin carrier, The Raging Trainwreck was still eyeing his moment from behind the scrimmage.

 

Numbers broke through the line, the bull centaur and the minotaur doing their best efforts to keep the Nurgle players contained from getting to him. 

 

 

But alas, one of the Pestigors managed to get to him, shoving him and the ball over the sideline and KO'ing Numbers in the process.

 

The ball scattered to right in front of the Nurgle endzone however...

 

 ... and The Raging Trainwreck saw his moment, thundering over and picking up the ball, scoring the 1-0!

 

 Now forced to kick as the first half was nearing it's end, both teams set up once again.

 

 

 

 The Rotspawn was fouled into injury, but unfortunatly regenerated as Luey was send off for his efforts.

 

 

The ball remained near the middle of the line, out of reach for the Chaos Dwarf players. 

 

 

But in the following scrimmage, The Raging Trainwreck suddenly got in possession of the ball again, trying to force his way forward accompanied by the Minotaur.

 

Sadly, time ran out for the first half, and the teams set up again to go for the second half, the Violators once again kicking off.

 

 The kick-off table allowed me to redeploy a set of players, and I set up ready for a possible flank push.

 

The line held, pushing the Rotspawn over, as one of the Pestigor collected the ball far in the backfield.

 

 But the weight of the strength 4 began to carry, and the Nurgle players managed to break through over my right flank, despite valiant efforts of the Dawi'Zharr Flamesmith to plug the hole.

 

The Pestigor drove up the field, protected by the other horns sporting beastmen.

 

Handing off the ball, one of them made the run for the endline, and after a succesfull rush scored the equalizer, 1-1.

 

 With only 5 turns remaining now, the Violators set up aggressively again, hopefully able to break through the line one last time for a desperate effort.

 

 Numbers collected the ball, as the left flank was infiltrated but not really opened.

 

 As Hot Milky Nipples was knocked over, the ball carrier was closed in as good as possible, to see if we could sneak out somewhere.

 

But the ballcarrier got bowled over, and a true scatterfest of the ball began, eventually ending behind the Nurgle line.  This actually meant I would need to start dodging and passing... on 6's with all the Disturbing Presences around...

 

 But that was not to be, and a Pestigor grabbed the ball and ran over the flank.

 

 

Unable to score, he did infiltrate far in my field though to keep the ball safe. while the center became very thinned out in the brawl happening there.

 

 

In a moment of glory, Dievanons ran into the endzone cheering... except the ball was still far away on the other side of the pitch, in the possession of a Pestigor!  But I didn't care, I spend 5 turns manouevring the Stabba around his line for a pass that never came, so at least I would place it where he was intended to go!

 

And with a last foul on a Bloater, the referee ended the game, resulting in a draw!

 

Well, at least that's a point gained against these hard hitting tankers, at the cost of only two Hobgoblins that will miss next game, but with a Blocker gaining Mighty Blow and the Bull Centaur gaining Block, a good trade off.  League wise I sneaked up a little to 8th spot again, but as the teams around me still have games before I get to the pitch, I doubt I can hold on to it, seeing my calendar is quite full the coming weeks.  

 

Normally my next game should be against the human team that is around my place in the ranking, so another make or break is on the menu...