Blood Bowl Forge World Bull Centaur

 With my Blood Bowl team recently obtaining a second Bull Centaur in the line-up, it was time to paint another one.

 

And what better then one of the recently released Forge World (well, technically it's no longer called that, but we all know...) Bull Centaurs for that purpose.

 

I managed to paint him in about a week after I added him to my roster, in the two weeks deadline before he needed to get on the pitch.  This allows me to send him for a week of training of "picking up the ball", the big problem my team is facing in this Blood Bowl League al season long.  The moment that starts happening smoothly, they better be prepared to get a heap of losses being tossed their way as the Vongalazthag Violators aren't giving up just yet!

 

But we'll see how that goes the 6th of june...

 

 

Food Wars volume 9 - Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki

 Awright, time to pick up Food Wars again, as I now obtained a few volumes to continue reading this excellent series about cooking.

 

Which intrests me by topic alone already, and I haven't regretted reading any of the previous volumes either. 

And it begins with the conclusion of Soma's quarter final cook-off versus Alice Nogiri.  When it turns out he used... convenience story candy in his recipy, the judges are totally flabbergasted.  Alice is corrected on her faulty assumptions of a bento box by the dean, her own grandfather, as she is soundly defeated by Soma.  In the meantime, Megumi is preparing for her own quarter final, in which she will face Ryo Kurokiba, Alice's assistant, in a ramen themed challenge.

 

As Megumi reflects on her practice dishes, using ingredients from her home village.  But Alice confides in her that her opponent also knows the seaside well, as she met him years ago when he was still a young bloke and already in charge of a diner for dockworkers.  He was a real prick back in those days, but of exceptional skill, seeing the kitchen as a battlefield.

 

He serves a ramen dish inspired on a french fish soup, impressing the judges, while Megumi brings a crystal clear broth made of scallops and vegetables from the Aizu area in Japan.  After a tense duel, the dean selects Ryu as the winner, but Megumi bows out of the contest under applause from the crowd.  The dean admits to himself that this class might just be diamond generation, as the survivors so far prepare for their cook offs.

 

Soma meets the last qualifier, Subaru Mimasaka.  While he looks like a big, rough biker, he is actually a really relaxed guy.  While the third quarter final is based around hamburgers, putting Hayama against Hisako Arato, the spice master against the medicinal chief, Soma, Aldini and Megumi get to watch the contest in Subaru's waiting room, witnessing how Hisako makes a burger from turtle meat.

 

But what will Hayama put up against her dish?  That is something to look forward to in volume 10 of this highly enjoyable manga series...

Samoa boardgame review

 Another one of my Vinted finds, I paid less then 5 euro for this cardgame by 999 games, and it was still all sealed inside on top!

 

So when we had friends over a while ago, we sat down for this cardgame in which you decorate your celebratory masks.

 

In this game, you are randomly assigned a mask, and the objective of the game is to find out which masks the other players have, while also trying to decorate yours with as much feather points as possible.  But you must go along with this without giving away which mask is yours!

 

If all the other players manage to guess your mask, you score no points, not for guessing correctly who the other players are, nor for the feathers that decorate your mask.  As such, you need to dare to bluff away and at times boost other masks, but as a round ends by 5 cards being placed on one mask, and it depends if the majority are top or bottom, you might also not want to boost one side to much.

 

After a round ends, you must deduct (or guess wildly) who is whom, and then the points are counted.  Who scores the most after three rounds of doing this, wins the game.  Now, the game is made for 2-4 players, and with 4 players it was great fun.  However, I doubt it would be much bluffing when played with only 2, probably ending up in a guessing game to much that way.

 

But for a party game, this is a fun little cardgame well worth the purchase!

Efteling Fotoboekje 2022

 The most "recent" picture booklet so far in my collection, we are going back to the year 2022.

 

And like last times, I'm going to flick through this book through the video medium, so let's have a look inside.

 

 

Hope you enjoyed the little video and the way the park evolved compared to the previous video of these sorts of books.

 

And for 2025, we ordered our copy already with the booking of the hotel we did for the summer...

The Haul Report 418: many sexy ladies inside!

 Welcome back to the series which in the past period has evolved from a short weekly overview, to a longer time-spanning, more or less monthly feature.

 

Because crazy spending days are a bit more under control I would say...

 

But sexy ladies first, with the newest warband to hit Underworlds, and the first one to float my boat in looks, the Knives of the Crone.

 

I got the BelloLudi "Age of Muskets" period rulebook as well, for a measly 7.50 euro due to the demise of the dutch store Tabletopper's final sale.

 

 

Technically not loot, but definitly related, I got that Elethain tattoo I talked about in the past at the Antwerp Tattoo Convention! 

 

 

And some more boardgames arrived as well in the previous period, the collection is getting a nice little start now for sure.

 

I also obtained cheaply through Vinted the last missing Aelves warband, Gryselle's Arenai, who for some reason I never got round to buying during edition 1.  But with the new rules no longer needing the cards, these older boxes are easy to get for a good price if you look around. 

 

As well as some more Underworlds merchandise.  The carry case is to serve for my Blood Bowl team though, so I no longer need to switch with my Underworlds warband in a single case.  The deckbox is always handy, while the Morgwaeth sleeves are for the upcoming Knives of the Crone.  Finaly, the collectible coin is just a nice "must have" for an Underworlds lover. 

 

So I (finally) picked up one of the free coin holders when collecting my orders from the GW store yesterday...

 

More sexy ladies came to reinforce my collection, as the Succubus Blood Bowl team from Sukubus Studio arrived, a team that I am planning in next year's league as Vampires.

 

Talking Blood Bowl, finally my remaining Star Player for the Chaos Dwarf team arrived, with Zharg Madeye ready to start blasting away!

 

I also picked up some more Talens Amsterdam acryllic craft paints, as I'll soon be starting to paint on terrain for the table in earnest, and this is WAY cheaper then using wargame paints for basically a heap of drybrushing... 

 

The final addition to the haul are two more pins from the "Smidje" Efteling series, found on the cheap on Vinted. The "Zoetekauw" which where 2 in this lot I already had, so those I'll trade away, but seeing they cost 2 euro a pop for a blind ball in the park, and the seller asked 6 euro for the whole lot, I was not passing this one by.

So that is a nice pile of additions in this episode, looking forward to assembling all these gorgeous ladies in the coming weeks!

 

 

On the Painting Desk 331

 Time for another paint desk update, and the big white screen is gone!

 

I finished as such the K'daai entry for the Golden Hat the past week, so time to focus on other things.

 

The main paint target at the moment is the Forge World Bull Centaur for Blood Bowl, whom needs to be finished for a game the 6th of june, but in the coming week I'll be on holiday, AND have a tournament the 1st of June as well, so not much will be advancing on the painting level as a result.

 

However, apart from the Chaos Dwarf related models, I also have been doing some good progress on the Idoneth soulscryer, pushing him beyond his first base colour layer, while I started painting on a medic for my Bolt Action belgians.  The latter is to test out the waters for the colour scheme of the regular troop uniforms, in order to set up a decent paintline for them afterwards.

 

So that's it for this week, next episode I don't expect to many big advances, but check back anyways!

Giant Rat

 A pretty simple, yet necessary completed model for today.

Namely, that most common of monsters in any fantasy setting: a giant rat!

The model was obtained a while ago through Vinted, and is 3D printed resin.  But, as I will be starting some solo games soon, the scenario for Rusty Dagger that I will start out with on that journey requires a rat.

So a quick paintjob later, the big critter is ready for the table, and to face the opponents trying to make their lives miserable!

So keep your eyes peeled to see the not so little beastie in a battle report soon!

Warhammer Underworlds battle report: Cyreni's Razors vs Ironsoul's Condemnors

 Now that the night shifts are calming down, I can now and then sneak in a game of Underworlds again at the casual meet-ups, and as such did that yesterday.

 

Even though I will only be able to play a single game before leaving to work, it did give me time to try my Razors and their "Wracking Tides" deck I build, using Countdown to Cataclysm together with Wrack and Ruin.

 

Facing me was Wim, whom I never actually played before, and his Ironsoul's Condemnors which use a deck build from Blazing Assault and Emberstone Sentinels.

 

 I got to pick the board side, preventing the blocked hex side one for Hammertide, though it didn't matter to much as he was probably moving away from the line on the get go.

 

 Though even he got the first turn, he actually didn't, so a stagger and a damage was Ironsoul's fate.  

Coming forward, he targetted Cephanyr from the get go, the squid being pummeled down fast, as I had opted to inspire Cyreni first for this turn.  He managed to score some quick cards, and the Condemnors took a 3-5 lead after round 1.  However, this didn't stress me to much, as I knew what I had in hand and I would be scoring well normally in the second round.

 

As I took the first turn being the underdog on a tied roll, I started hammering more at Ironsoul herself, and even though he spend his healing potion and all on her, she went down to the combined strikes of the inspired Renglaith and Alathyr.  And allowing me to score some cards in the process as well.

 

The Condemnors started to advance on tokens, so I knew he had Supremacy in hand, yet even should I not be able to prevent it it wouldn't be to much of a problem in all honesty.

 

 Especially if he throws a yahtzee worth of Flanked's in an attack where he had no support on the table, giving Alathyr the Cleave skill to retaliate, but unfortunatly he missed as well even with a re-roll.

 

And so he duly scored Supremacy as he succesfully defended against Cyreni's ranged attack, but as I scored strongly this end phase the Razors now went to the lead with 12-10.

 

 The final battle round saw me inspire my whole warband, and the hunt was on for Brodus.

 

He quickly received some minor hits, putting him to 3 out of his 5 wounds, when Alathyr got lucky on the defence and survived another turn against all odds, and thanks to a nice defensive upgrade combo.  He was dealt only a single damage thanks to the more crits in defence, reducing the damage to only 1.  But as he had Unstoppable and was vunerable, this was reduced to 0...

 

 Tavian however had to step in now as well, and the might of two Stormcasts proved to much for the poor Thrall and she went down under a fury of hammer blows.

 

Tavian had positioned himself to save Brodus from a ping followed by a Hammertide, so instead Renglaith attacked with his 4 dice on swords with a re-roll, managing to roll 4 hammers followed by a fifth one, allowing the Stormcast to survive.  But it mattered not, as I scored more then him in the end phase as well, netting a 16-13 victory for the Razors.

 

So, I'm really happy with how the deck plays and have found some in and outs for board orientation.  I know where my weakness in the build lies as well (nope, not against aggro as I put down the Condemnors and the Jaws in the practice games), knowing I might have to take certain big risks should I come across those particular warbands.  But we'll see if we can mount that cliff if we ever get there after all...

 

Now to take the Razors to the Mines of Alost II in a week's time and see how we do in the tournament!

Mantic Games Abyssal Dwarfs G'rog Light Mortar

 While I don't frequently play T9A, this unit is still playable in there as a light mortar team.

Produced by Mantic Games, the G'rog Light Mortar is a nifty little, demon maw shell lobber.

While the crew might not be totally "Abyssal Dwarf" in style, as they are regular Dwarfs that come with the kit and a small headpiece to add to them, it is never the less quite a fun model to paint.  

I deliberatly though based it on a 50x50 square, as that way I can "attach" it to my regiments of Blunderbusses or Fireglaives as a unit filler, especially if the fire in two ranks would ever come back to the game of The Old World.

But until then, it might be seeing shelf life mostly, unless as said in real huge battles where you put your missile troops in ranks for the looks alone.  

Or I should just see to get a game or two in this year of The Ninth Age...

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2

 Well, it is with mixed feelings I've sat down for this second season.

 

 

While it is a good generic fantasy series, it churns my insides it is supposedly Lord of the Rings related,  one can count more inconsistensies in 5 minutes then the finale of a bukkake party.

 

 And will we get answers on who "the Stranger" is?  Okay, granted, we all know, but heck, it never hurts to think the producers can keep it a secret...  It begins at the dawn of the Second Age, when Sauron was murdered by Adar and his orcs, only to turn to a black ooze that recovers to a physical form after thousands of years.  Yeah, that makes Adar a mighty old Uruk...

 

 While Gil-galad believes the rings are a weapon against Sauron, Elrond disagrees and takes them to Cirdan the Shipwright.  He believes them to be pure perfection, and he dons one, just as Galadriel and Gil-galad, restoring the power of the Elves.  In the meantime, the Stranger, Nori and Poppy got lost on their way to Rhun.  

The dwarven realm of Khazad-Dum still suffers from the aftermath earthquakes of the birth of Mount Doom, but the king Durin III and the prince Durin IV still refuse to reconcile.  Sauron has moved to Eregion to meet with Celembrimbor for more rings to be forged, as Galadriel sees the death of the latter in a vision and wants to travel there as well.  Celembrimbor is conceived by Sauron, who takes on the guise of Annatar, an emmissary of the Valar.  

The presumed dead Isildur awakens in a spider cave, managing to escape thanks to his horse, and comes across a girl called Estrid on his way back to the village.  Ambushed by wild men, they are saved by Arondir, still mourning the loss of Bronwyn.  Her son Theo and the Wildmen are captured by an unknown being in the forest.  In Numenor meanwhile, a power struggle has erupted between the blinded Queen Miriel and Pharazon.  

 

As Elrond and Galadriel set out for Eregion, the Stranger runs into a mysterious man, Tom Bombadil, nearby a colony of halflings, the Stoors.  They learn the Harfoots are descendant of one of them that left the desert to find a place of green hills to settle, the Suzat.  Estrid, discovered to be one of the Wild Men, regains Isildur's and Arondir's trust when she frees them from the mud.  They encounter Ents that had captured the others, while Elrond and Galadriel face off Barrow-wights (yeah, they really are putting the whole Barrow-downs and Tom Bombadil ommited part from the books in the series instead *sigh*).

 

 As Galadriel is captured by Orcs, Durin III receives his ring of power and tries to bring sunlight back to the mountain, but it also makes him very greedy.  In Eregion, Annatar tries to convince Celembrimbor to make the Nine, rings intended for Men, but he refuses.  But through manipulation and truth-bending, he convinces him at last to start the work.  Numenor sees the internal struggle escalate when Pharazon is crowned and starts a hunt on the Faithful, putting the blame on Elendil for starting the riot and arresting him.

 

 

As Annatar takes on the governing of Eregion, with Celembrimbor focussed on the ringmaking, as Adar tells Galadriel that Sauron's masters crown of Morgoth was the weapon that could defeat him, and that together with the elven rings it could destroy him for good.  As Tom Bombadil brings the Stranger to a valley to find his wizard's staff, he receives a vision of Nori and Poppy in danger and goes to help them instead.  Adar lays siege to Eregion, but Galadriel realizes Sauron lured it there as he doesn't have an army of his own.   Bringing down the mountin next to the city to dam the river (because yeah, three trebuchet shots do that), the orc army assaults the city.  Elrond arrives at Durin's to ask for their help, while Celembrimbor realises he is trapped in an illusion as he finishes work on the Nine.

 

Seeing his city in flames, he tries to rally his soldiers and people, only to find that Annatar has placed them all under his influence.  he finds Galadriel, who escaped with the help of Arondir, and hands her the rings, in order to take them somewhere safe.  As the forces of Lindon engage the orcs, the dwarfs set out of their hold, but soon are called back and don't come to the aid of the beleagured city.

 

Below Khazad-dum, a Balrog has awakaned due to Durin III's mining, and coming to his senses the king engages it and goes into his doom (hence, Durin's Bane), but not before naming his son the new king and a blast resealing the mine.  The Stranger refuses an offer from the Dark Wizard, apparently also one of the Ishtari, who offers to supplant Sauron (is he Saruman of one of the missing blue wizards?) but is rebuked for this.  He destroys the canyon, forcing the Stoors to migrate and Nori and Poppy join them, as the Stranger finds his staff, as well as a name he thinks he will be called by, "Gandalf" (tadaaa, because his first appearance in grey clothing never aluded to that).  In Numenor all the Faithful are arrested and Miriel accused of being in league with Sauron, as Elendil escapes with the sword Narsil, while Pelargir is set up as a military outpost of Numenor.  

 

 

Sauron kills Celembrimbor before taking a hold over the army of Adar, who is killed by his desillusioned soldiers, as Sauron takes the Nine from Galadriel to save the survivors of the city.  He comes back on his word though, but then the Dwarfs finally arrive, helping the Elves to escape to a valley north of the burning city (aka, what will become Rivendell), where they resolve to stand against Sauron...

 

And so the second season ends.  Sure, it did have good moments, see my opening remarks about the whole Rings of Power series, and still a few questions unanswered.  Like how will Elendil become the High King of Numenor,  and who is the Dark Wizard, but that will probably take 2 or 3 years still as it is currently in pre-production. 

All in all though, it was better then the first season at least.  And the penultimate episode, Doomed or Die, really was some great fantasy watching.

 

And we got Old Tom, you never can get enough Tom in your life!

Junk Art boardgame review

 A short while ago, we had some friends over and decided to do some boardgames, Noshi taking out one of her older games which I personally hadn't played either: Junk Art.

 

The goal of the game is to make works of art using wooden blocks, but every creation most adhere to different rules.

 

In this game, you play on your Hometown and 3 other world cities, trying to build modern art, and obtaining as much fans of your creation in the process.  This results in a game of balancing the blocks, as for example Hometown gives extra points for putting same shape or same colour blocks together.  But the difficulty also lies in the fact the player before you gives cards depicting the blocks, and that is the one you need to build your creation with.

 

 

In other cities, in this case we had Montreal, you also shift sitting places, and as such creations, after every build, so you have to think about how not to make the creations sheer impossible, as you will be the next one that needs to do work on that particular tower.  Apart from the criteria of every city, it often also grants bonus points of building the highest creation without it collapsing.  So you constantly need to find a balance, both in manner of speaking and in stacking oddly shaped blocks, and this can result in some very tense and concentrated moments!

 

A very fun game that results in a lot of laughs for sure, but it definitly isn't the most simple of games out there for the feint of hearted!

Blood Bowl 3D printed Minotaur

 He will already have been seen in game reports, but just for completeness sake a little bit of a closer look at the Blood Bowl Minotaur I'm currently fielding with my team.

 

 

As the Games Workshop one is still out of stock, I found this 3D printed one a while ago on Etsy, and painted him up, like my Bull Centaur, as a stand-in for now.

 

The model of course have been painted in the "team colours" and now stands ready to bash into the opponent lines, frothing at the mouth and rushing in with it's polished up horns for maximum mayhem.

 

The plan is to put him 1 square of the line of scrimmage, then blitz other S5 big guys like ogres for that frenzied S6 bashing.

 

And you could already read how he did bring it off last game...

 

 

On the Painting Desk 330

 And another project cleared from the desk this week, as the Thricefold Discord is ready and done.

 

Now to get going on another project and hopefully clear that out as well in the coming week...

 

Namely the k'daai that is still looming behind the screen, as the deadline for the Golden Hat is looming on the horizon, and I'll soon be out for a few days on weekend and a tournament.  To that end I'm pushing really hard on getting him done, trying not to get to distracted.

 

Another thing I did shuffle on the desk in the meantime are the first two out of 4 pieces of Spearhead terrain, as these will be rather swift paintjobs with bigger brushes and not to much, as we say in flemish, prullerij (fidgeting in english).

 

And some little tidbits done left and right, but let's see if we can get that screen away by next week!

Great Wall of China boardgame review

 Time for another game try-out with Noshi, and this time it is The Chinese Wall from 999 Games.

 

 

Part of some of the cheap games I found through Vinted, I bought this together with Love Letter that we had a look at a while ago, and at less then 5 euro for the game I can't complain.

 

This is a cardgame, in which players alternate building parts of the Great Wall of China.  They do this by putting down cards from their hand, with a score attached to them.  At the beginning of a turn, a player checks if he has the highest value, then scores one of the Fame tokens that is connected to that part of the wall.

 

The first token substracts from the value, allowing another player to try and score the second one, though it is possible to actually obtain both.  Add into the mix some cards with special abilities, and it becomes a game of counting and seeing how to counter the other.

 

 

Once a player has played out his whole hand, or the Fame tokens have all been gained, the final points are counted and the winner determined.

 

HOWEVER, we played this game first time round with only the two of us, and that actually made it, to quote Noshi, "meh".  You know what the other still can be holding to play, and the chances are both players each will obtain one of the Fame tokens from a section until the final cards are laid down.  I can imagine with more players, and only two tokens per section, there are more variables to take into account and the ebb and flow of the game will change drastically.

 

Definitly something we will be trying when we have people over for some games before making a final judgement on the game!

The Immortal Voyage of Captain Drake

 Lazy sunday afternoon, so that means time for one of those traditional TV adventure movies, this one hailing from 2009.

 

 

Don't expect a blockbuster though, these are the kind of movies you just enjoy on the couch for what they are: television flicks.

 

In 1592, Captain Francis Drake sets sail from Cadiz, his rival Don Sandovate (hello Boba Fett) on his tail.  But unbeknowst to him, his daughter had hidden onboard his ship as well.  They get into a storm, finding themselves suddenly 2000 miles of course in Syria.  Here they are greeted by a Sultan, who tells them his oracle magically had them summoned to him.

 

 

His reputation preceeding him, the Sultan had him brought in order to find the Tree of Life and help his people, who suffer from a plague.  Drake agrees to the proposed terms, and first sets of to find the Map of Plato in the Library of Alexandria's ruins.  His onboard historian unlocks the riddles as they go, leading to finally find the tree on the artic regions, where he finally gets rid of Sandovate as well.

 

So, the positives of this short (86 minutes) SyFy channel made movie: it is enjoyable for what it is, a historical figure (sir Francis Drake) tossed in a story suitable for Sindbad or Jason and the Argonauts, including mythical monsters, hidden tombs and swashbuckling galore.

 

The neutral is the special effects.  You can see this is a television budget made movie, and especially the big monsters suffer from it, not going above "Xena Warrior Princess" level, except that technology has advanced more then a decade between this movie and the venerable series of my youth.

 

And of course there is the negatives, and one that is for many critics a big one: the acting... Adrien Paul is tossing around a terrible accent, and the additional actors are, well, let's say they give off the vibe of a bunch of very enthousiastic rennaissance faire battlefield re-enactors.  With all respects to the re-enactors, they do it out of love, and these blokes actually do it as a profession...

 

 

Never the less, for an hour and a half of watching there have been far worse movies out there, so I personally don't think it a terrible waste of time in the end.  

 

 

Warhammer Underworlds: The Thricefold Discord

 Hail Slaanesh and all that!

While a lover of all that the Dark Prince of Chaos stands for, I never the less preferred to field the Dread Pageant instead so far.

But a while ago I asked Noshi to pick two warbands to paint up next (her other pick was Lady Harrow) as she knows nothing about the state of the game and meta, and this was her first pick.  And as they are tournament legal this edition, I've painted them us as the first warband I finished in 2025.  As a reward, I'll take them along to the tournament in Rotterdam half of June

The first thing I decided on their colourscheme though was to make all the leather straps and such light purple, with the demonic horns and claws a darker purple, because you know, Slaanesh.  For the bases, I went for an icy blueish colourscheme, as a rememberance of Deathmaw.

 

And so the demonic threesome, loathing each other, will have to take to the field of battle, especially ruleswise I'm a big fan of Lascyvir and his ping ability.  Vexmor will be my "friendly territory" tank, thoguh I still have like two weeks to think which deck I actually want to look at for use with them...

 

And then we start the next warband for the game, which will be a "bit" more light-sided...