Fantasy Anime League Spring 2025 edition: the results

 So how did we do in this season's anime prediction competition?

 

After going in the top 300 last time round, I doubted I would be able to repeat this feat, but one can try after all.

 

But first of all, let's have a look at how my picked anime faired.  

 

 

I've Been Killing Slimes: 24th place, way lower then expected

My Hero Academia Vigilante: 4th place

Lazarus: 2nd place

The Beginning After the End: 26th place, this dropped off seriously after a strong start

Please Put Them On Takamine-san: 28th place

Yandere Dark Elf: 46th place, did everyone become holier then a saint?

Shiunji Family Children: 15th place

Summer Pockets: 17th place

 

All together, this resulted in a top 26% place, so still not totally terrible but a bit lower then I hoped for never the less. 

 

On a weekly basis, my League went like this for the current edition: 

Week 1: 38767 pts, 9994 th place

Week 2: 244950 pts, 3016 th place, succesfully aced Beginning After the End

Week 3: 508253 pts, 1583 th place, swapped Beginning for Summer Pockets, succesfully aced Vigilante

Week 4: 593362 pts, 2886 th place, swapped Takamine for Beginning,

Week 5: 759523 pts, 3334 th place, swapped Summer Pockets for Takamine

Week 6: 875333 pts, 4249 th place 

Week 7: 1075577 pts, 7222 th place, swapped Beginning for Shiunji

Week 8: 1206329 pts, 4833 th place, succesfully aced Shiunji

Week 9: 1444595 pts, 3912 th place, succesfully aced Takamine-san

Week 10: 1729721 pts, 3396 th place, Wild Card swap Summer Pockets for Takamine, succesfully aced Summer Pockets

Week 11: 1798030 pts, 3965th place

Week 12: 1954267 pts, 5246th place

Week 13: 2315712 pts, 6142th place

Unfortunatly, due to a family outing, I forgot to Ace in my first week, and have been on the chase as a result since then.  Now, my selection wasn't top notch either though it turned out, and slowly I started slipping down the table at slightly under 1000 spots per week.

 

Most of my anime didn't perform as well as hoped, only Lazarus and Vigilante ending in the top regions, so those weren't the best of gut feelings I guess.

 

Let's hope that the summer edition fares better, which kicks off right after this one ends... 

 

The half year update of the 2025 goals

 Already half the year has gone by, and some very good progress has been made in the planned objectives.

 

In that some more goals have been completed... but some are officially failures as well now!

 

So let's have a look at how everything proceeded over the past quarter, and how far we came from the end of march update to this moment. 

And let's immediatly kick in the open door: both the Combat Patrol and the Kill Team of Aeldari are failures.  I looked through the rules, and just couldn't get excited for it, selling them off again, cutting my losses in a failure to get motivated again for the whole 40k universe.

 

Other projects on the painting table aren't labelled (yet) as failures, but due to circumstances and other projects requiring more immediate attention haven't been touched upon yet.  These are the Moonstone warband, the Wood Elf army first and foremost, and the Easterlings and Rohan forces for Middle-earth, though none of them have been given up upon yet. 

Because I have been doing quite a nice batch of painting on other forces!  The Lothlorien force has grown to 99 points, and though I will initially need only 500 pts for a tournament in november, I'm planning on rounding that goal out completely.  Talking gaming events, the Empire army for our club's Escalation League now stands at 1635 out of the aimed 2000 points, even though I bowed out of the campaign for family health issues.  

 

 

Furthermore, painting has been done on the Idoneth Deepkin, now totalling 1050 points (with a new book and as such probably new points values coming soon), while the Hedonites of Slaanesh have expanded to 790 points, an additional bonus being that it also included one of the Underworlds warbands, putting that counter now on 1 out of 5.  Next, for said MESBG tournament in november that I am actually organising, some terrain has been finished now as well, and that stands at 1 out of the aimed 5 buildings.  Finally, the Belgians for Bolt Action have been brought up to 121 points, as they actually need to get to double the 500 points goal for the tournament in november.

 

And that is the part of painting goals for this year, so let's have a look as well at the other things on the list, starting with the viewings parts.   

And that kicks off with a succesfull goal already obtained, as I managed to get to the series goal: 24 out of 20 have been viewed in the past months.  The movies are close on it's heels as well, currently standing at 15 out of 20, so those will be probably reaching their goal in the coming quarter.

 

On the anime front, I watched 17 out of 50 series aimed, and of those 5 where from the 40 Noshi had already seen. Maybe this will help focussing a bit more on reading, because while I already completed the rulebooks and regular books reading with 7 out of 5 aimed, the manga trail behind still hanging at a measly 2 out of 30.

 

For the other goals this year, things are still on schedule, having attended 5 out of aimed 10 wargame events and competitions, all culminating in 38 played games of the prognosed 50 so far. Rounding out this overview, we tasted 55 out of 50 new beers making that a completion as well, while 5 out of 10 frituurs have been visited.

 

So all in all it looks like it is going to be a strong showing for the goals.  As soon as the Bolt Action army hits it's mark this year, I'm going to be shifting my focus on some of the other armies in an effort to get as much done in the final quarter of the year.  The coming quarter will be as such rounding out other projects and deadlines, but I'm not planning on starting any more "must finish" projects in between for this year.  But as it goes now, even with the two abandoned 40k projects included, I still believe finishing between 60% to 75% of the goals set, which makes it a good year that way.

 

Let's see how we progress during the summer vacation period!

 

 

On the Painting Desk 335

 Time for another weekly update, and it has been a good one as I got some things finished.

 

Namely Myari's is completely done, but also the Oracle scout.

 

So it is time to move to the next project, and that is first and foremost now the Shardspeaker for my Hedonites of Slaanesh Spearhead.  This sorceress is mostly a support general, so no fighting shenanigans from her part.

 

For the rest I'm planning to do some decent work on the Spearhead wall section mostly, before maybe if I still find some additional time to do work on the other things as well. 

 

Check back next week to see any possible progress! 

Golden Hat XLIV: K'daai

 Time to join another community painting contest over at Chaos Dwarfs Online, with the latest round of the Golden Hat.

 

And this time, the theme was K'daai.

 

With a deadline set at the 31st of May, I went out and paint up a model for the contest.  I had these mountains of Runewars models still, and I went for one of the big rune golems as such to paint up.  It's not like I ever am going to end in the top painting spots, but it is a motivator to get some things painted along the way. And you never know like last time I get lucky in the participant draw...

 

The beast itself, even though based to large as it comes with an integral 50x50 base (and is just to wide to put on a 40x40) was painted in the same style as the others in my army, a dark grey with the lava veins showing.  However, as these are clothed and sword wielding, I opted to incorporate my army's blue and gold scheme into it as well to prevent it looking as just a big grey lump of plastic.

 

The base as usual was done like my regular army as well, so no surprises there...

 

 It didn't win any top spots as expected, nor was I the lucky draw winner, but it is these sorts of thingies that keeps me motivated to paint on my beloved Dawi'Zharr amidst all the deadlines...

Warhammer Underworlds: Myari's Purifiers versus Borgit's Beastgrabbaz

 Wiej, I managed to get outside to play a game of Underworlds before work during the casual meet-ups.

 

Now, due to having to get back on time to get to the night shift, I can only manage a single game a night, but it did gave me the opportunity for a first try out of my Blazing Assault / Emberstone Sentinels build.

 

Facing me was Peter with Borgit's Beastgrabbaz, and a build of Wrack & Ruin combined with Pillage & Plunder, and he opted to make Bahannar the trophy...

 

I got to pick the board, and deployed my warband all to one side.  Peter was countering, his leader ending up in striking range of my hitters, so that was nice, and his troll as such forced to be set far away on the outfield.   What was more was that I had Supremacy in my opening hand, and as I knew he would be out delving first and foremost, that seemed actually really scoreable in round one as I looked at the deployed bands.

 

To that end, Bahannar immediatly occupied the token in neutral territory, as he indeed started to delve on his half to inspire his warband.

 

Snagz was the first to fall to the attack of Myari, after escaping some arrows from Senaela, and by now I saw how relatively easy the Purifiers actually inspire.

 

 I duly scored Supremacy, and took an early 5-2 lead as a result

 

 For the second round, I still had Strike the Head in hand, and it was time to try and assassinate his leader.  Bahannar charged forward, swinging his huge hammer and combined with the grievous it had went through the defences of Borgit, felling the git in one blow.

 

 Rigg and Shamm sneaked onto the objective to prevent me from getting it, but Ailenn moved up and swiftly dispatched the cloaked fellows with her blade.

 

 This left him with only Uglug whom I'd been ignoring, and Dregg, while I still had a full and healthy band of Aelves.

 

 The troggoth charged in, but Bahannar withstood the pummeling for now... yet was gravely wounded in the brutal assault.

 

 But as I kept scoring systematically, it stood 14 to 6 at the end of the second round, and all I had to do was consolidate and not worry to much about killing the opponents.

 

 Uglug kept battering Bahannar as for the third round in a row Peter had the initiative, and the Aelf fell to the savage assault.

 

 Ailenn wounded the beast, but he healed back up with a Healing Potion, and in return gravely wounded the swordsmaster.  Fortunatly she hed Great Fortitude and as such remained clinging on vunerably.

 

 I had the swordmaster "voltron'ed up" though, and using Great Speed moved behind Myari on the total opposite side of the board, his only chance to take the bounty would be a lucky shot with Dregg.

 

But the puny little archer totally missed his shot, and my Aelf was safe from harm.

 

Senaela dodged an attack from Uglug, and so the game came to an end, the Purifiers keeping safe distances from the big beast, while rattled by the troggoth's attack my archer missed her shot to finish of little Dregg...

 

But it was nothing to worry about, as Myari took home a 17-11 won without ever actually coming into a tight spot.  Taking out his leader early in round 2 was a big boost in taking the win, as that left his wings clipped.  But I also had the benefit of both his leader being in striking distance, yet opting not to go for him immediatly to grab Supremacy first, and the troggoth being to far away to have any decent impact on the game.

 

The deck itself ran smoothly, I only had one card left in my pile and in the very end also didn't score a single objective as I failed to make that Perfect Strike even with 2 dice, but heck, it didn't matter to much.   

 

 

White Dwarf 484

 Time to have another look at an issue of the Games Workshop in home magazine, White Dwarf.

 

At the beginning of the year, at the Aalst Underworlds tournament, I obtained a nice stack of older magazines for nought, and been flicking through them on and off.

 

Now, let's have a look through it after reading them, and have some opinions.  I do say, I am not into the whole 40k universe thing for years, so those won't be getting to much attention on my part for the reading, but the things that caught my intrest I read of course. 

The cover shows a Chaos Marine, with the big title for the issue being rules to play Boarding Actions through a space hulk.

 

Starting out with the regular community pages, the first article tells about what it is to be a human in the Imperium.  The Arks of Omen was a new thing back then, and as such background to how it came to be is provided in the next article.

 

Next we get a Flashpoint rule set, Herald of Misery.  This is the first set of rules for the Ark boarding action missions, and the rules to play it out are also included in the next article in the magazine.  Tiles are included for use in the game as well, together with a set of mission briefings, force organisations and a battle report between Orks and Thousand Sons using Kill Team.  A lot more Kill Team is added to the whole volume about boarding actions as such, as the game of course lends itself to such small scale games.

 

But then we move to the Mortal Realms, which tickles my intrest more... because Fantasy gaming.

 

It begins with a Flashpoint Flash which gives a mini-campaign for the Gloomspite Gitz against the Skaven as they battle it our inside the underground warrens.

 

Flashpoint Rondhol features the Stormcast Eternals facing off a beginning of a Waaagh, before we go back to some painting guides for character models.  And then it is a nice juicy article for me, as Warriors of the Depths features new quests, rewards and lore for the Idoneth Deepkin in Warcry.

 

An article for deckbuilding in Underworlds is included, tailored towards the grots warbands, before we go to Middle-earth for a scenario of skirmishes in Osgiliath, together with a battle report between Gondor and Mordor forces.

 

So we conclude this issue, and it has some intrest for me with the Idoneth and the MESBG articles, so not to bad at all considering the heap of game systems and armies they produce.

Charlotte OVA: The Strong Ones

 Following in the trail of the Charlotte anime I recently completed, I also viewed the special OVA released afterwards, The Strong Ones.

 

This special extra episode was released about a year after the series, and takes place in the first half of the series, where they still work out from their highschool organisation.

 

It tells about Iori Sekiguchi, a mind reader and as such very hard to find.  Having been selected by the student council, Yuu and Nao must find a way to work around her mind reading powers to try and approach her, which is something made very difficult due to her powers.  

 

 

She can figure out the team's next moves, they eventually figure a way to work out what to do and bring her to the folds of the school. They do this by taking her out on a pleasant day to the amusement park, as they learn the girl has actually an incurable disease that will take away her mobility, and the problems this causes with her best friend.  But Nao manages to consolidate the two together, and Iori vows to do her best to fight the disease.

 

A nice little extra for the series, even though it doesn't resolve any of the loose ends left behind by the main series.  But when binging the series these days, it is best to view this OVA between episodes 4 and 5 for the timeline.

 

 

LARP'in up an old plastic necklace

 Okay, so it's a heatwave, meaning it is way to warm to bend close to my painting lamps to work on some figures.

 

So I went rummaging through some boxes of old stuff, and found this little plastic tooth necklace from I guess 25 years ago.

 

Now, as I'm still slowly working on a LARP set, I thought it was the perfect thing to spend the time sheltering the heat and still be somehow productive.  

 

The first thing I did, bar finding a way to have it placed decently to work on, was undercoat it with some Payne's Grey acrylic paint from my Talens Amsterdam collection.

 

Next, the tooth part got a layer of Van Dyke Brown, again from the same range.  I really love this series of paints, as they are better then euro store craft paints, yet don't cost an arm and a leg, averaging around 2 euro for a small to 8 euro for the very big tubes... and I can do a LOT of wargame bases or 3d printed wargame terrain with them. 

 

The edge was then painted with Gunmetal Grey from my Vallejo wargame paints.  For these small projects or detailing on larger pieces, I dare using these in comparison expensive paints but hey...

 

I then did a coating of Ink Wash Armour from Coat D'Arms over the metal, to give it some depth.  These inks also require a while to dry, so that would allow me to paint the rest of the tooth first before rounding out the top part.

 

And the first colour added to the tooth was Vallejo's Game Colour Earth, a muddy dried earth style of colour and ideal to work up from, letting the dark brown show through at parts to give some depth.

 

Using more wargame paints, I took some Green Brown from Vallejo to make the intermediate layer from the browns going to the white touches.

 

Next, using some more Coat D'Arms paint, I went to draw lines with Bone, now using a smaller brush to do this.  This is basically the most important stage of the painting of the tooth, as this layer is what makes it look decent or rubbish.  I think it turned out alright though.

 

The metal part then got some highlighting as by now the ink had dried enough to do so.

 

So, time for the final stages of the painting.  Using Dead White, again from Vallejo, I drew some highlight lines into the bone lines, more towards the point of the tooth then near the top.

 

Finally, the last painting was some Dark Rust, again from Vallejo, to weather the metal part at the top to give it a bit of an old and worn look.

 

And that is it for the painting, now all I needed to do was using some matt varnish, again from my stack of craft store material and not wargame expensive varnish, and leave it out to all dry up.

 

And there we have it, an afternoon project of transforming a cheap plastic tooth to something that can be worn on a LARP costume, a simple yet fun project to do and spend some time on sheltering from the weather.  It did give the benefit thought the paint and inks dried a bit faster though...

 

Until the next time! 

 

 

 

 

The Haul Report 419

 Time for another overview of the stuff added to the collection, and we kick-off with some tournament loot...

 

Because the first of june it was Mines of Alost II, a tournament for Warhammer Underworlds.

 

 

As Nico, the organiser, had one of the new OP kits available, that meant some nice promotional goodies to be had as well as the new board and the trophy as I actually won the tournament.  Apart from those, we also received a sprue of choice (I picked one with a Stormcast and a Kruelboy, always handy for solo games), while also picking up a paint.

 

But there is a serious blast from the past, as I had a parcel arriving from Agents of Gaming.  Yes, we are getting back into Babylon 5 after nearly 2 decennia! 

 

More Underworlds (and a paint) from Starspeler, as I saw "something" of a possibility in the new Realmstone Raiders deck (which is, a bad one mind you) combined with the Knives of the Crone mechanics... so I duly ordered the deck after all.

 

Going to play the Benelux Clash III, a Golden Ticket qualifier with an Organised Play set as price support, we brought home some more freebies. 

 

The final haul is some more Underworlds.  The benefit of being "that one guy in the club that plays it" is that people think off you when stumbling across sets of them.  And so they brought above three warbands from a local thrift store for 5 euro each... 

 

The cards where for straight to the garbage as they had a damp smell, but the models where complete and only the Warden's spear needs glueing.  And a free bag of bases lol... 

 

Okay... maybe that wasn't the final one, as on the cut off fo typing this, the friday afternoon, my Frontaal Beer Box subscription box arrived, VERY welcome at the 35 degrees it is currently outside...