SD Gundam Force Explosive Victory

Roightie, I`m adding the missing cards of this expansion to the `wanted` list of the House of Cards, but with some trading and all, I actually managed to narrow them down to only three cards to go still, yay me!

Superior Defender (or, in geekspeak, Deformed) Gundam was a cartoon in which the mobile suits where actually `chibi` (japanese for `cute`) characters, a drawing style in which the overal body length is between 1 to 3 times the head, and not in proportion at all.

It wasn`t bad to watch, with storylines about the same `level` as Pokemon and such, lighthearted and not the emo doom and gloom of regular Gundam series.

The cardgame was from 2003 - 2004 and consisted of 2 starterdecks of each 30 cards, and 2 expansions, Saga and Explosive Victory.  It wasn`t to bad to play so they say, not another copy of the Magic system, but I never got to actually play it.

However, I got a lot of doubles from the Explosive Victory set (all mint / near mint) so if you are looking for certain cards, drop me a line.

Now for the three cards I`m still looking for to complete this expansion:

Explosive Victory

SD-104 

SD-114

SD-120

More House of Cards: looking for...

Cards I`m LOOKING for for my own collection include the following ENGLISH games:

1. Knights of the Zodiac (all bar one of the Promotional Cards and 6 cards remaining from the Mythological Forces set)

2. Gundam MS War (bar the OZ corps starter box)

3. Gundam War 

4. SD Gundam War

Just drop me a line if you have some of those (for the Zodiac cards, check out my TCO link at the bottom of this blog, it look`s like a playing card) and even which cards you look for (I have for example 8000+ Magic cards and 4000+ WoW cards to trade away), or how much you want for them and we can certainly work something out...

Tourist Tips for Geeks: Outpost Gamecenter Antwerp

While I was sitting at the bar last sunday in what I can classify as my `regular pub` *yes, it has a fully licensed bar* I was suddenly hit by the idea... what if I made a semi-regular series of gaming / hobby places I visit.

The general idea might be then that if YOU'RE visiting Antwerp or it`s surroundings one day, you might want to visit one of these places to catch a game or search for a missing piece in your hobby collection.

So as the idea sprang there, the first `tourist tip for geeks` is as such the Outpost Gamecenter Antwerp, often referred to as just `Den Outpost` or even `OP`.

I went to Werner, the storeowner, and asked if he would mind if he would take some pictures and he didn't mind, so let`s have a look at the store:

The mailbox betrays the old name, Gamelink, but the rest is the same facade as long as memory serves, the OP.  Werner`s vision he once told me was that he wanted to do `something` with games, and that something has grown out to three stores now, one in Antwerp, Ghent and Brussels.

Here is their website with webstore and all.

Entering the store you`ll see a true walhalla of gaming cards, catering all the `large` series but also smaller, more obscure games.

The store also caters a large selection of boardgames as well as accessories like comics, binders, sleeves, game collectables like statuettes and the likes.

Turning around you see the other side of the hobby, the cybercafe boasting a huge array of ultramodern computers

In order to use the computers, you register an account that is usable in all stores of Outpost, and it starts at 3.75 / hour and deminishes the longer you use them.

A staircase leads to the basement where the tournaments are held:

This area is about as large as the store upstairs and can seat (cramped) around 150 players or 'roomy enough' 100 players.

So that is the first of the tourist trips I can recommend, maybe I'll see you there one day!

GPT Moscow 2012... my first ever top-8

Okay, so a strange turn of events, sheer luck and a low turn-out due to the GPQ Eindhoven, Tomorrowland and the first decent sunny sunday of this year`s summer made it happen that I found myself sitting on the finals table for the Top-8 Draft.

The played format today for the Grand Prix Trials in Antwerp to win byes for the GP Moscow was Sealed, and the top-8 did an additional draft with only prices to be gained there being 3 / 2 / 1 round byes for the top three. 

I played the sealed with a White / Blue deck, which I was lucky to get Ajani in but nothing much else, this awesome Planeswalker card actually won me the second round.

For the Draft I went to `money drafting`, picking all rares, foils and uncommons that came by.  Of the 8 players in the Draft, three where actually going to Moscow, and as I played a mate of mine in the KO phase I `threw` the game.  Not that I would have won anyways, but heck.

So not a bad day, as I scored the booster price support for spot 8 in the Swiss phase, and 3 boosters draft, meaning I actually registry fee / booster costs broke perfectly even this time round.

The final result ended in an overall 6th spot, not to shabby for my first games in the M2013 set, and who knows, one day someday I might score some other decent result, though I doubt I`ll ever get to the results `palmares` of my warhammer days lol.

Saint Seiya Myth Cloth: Fenrir of Alioth

Alioth Epsilon Fenrir is one of seven Warriors Gods of Asgard in the series Saint Seiya of Masami Kurumada .


Fenrir was a member of one of the most powerful and rich families in Asgard. One day, when he and his family went hunting, they were attacked by a bear. Helped by wolves and abandoned by humans, he started to live with wolves adopting their life style and deeply hating humans. Later, he was chosen by Hilda as the Epsilon God Warrior. He died fighting against Shiryu when an avalanche fell over him and his wolves.
Named after the Norse mythical wolf Fenrir, who will swallow Odin during Ragnarok. His armor also resembles the wolf

Background source: Saint Seiya Wiki

Fenrir is the latest of my God Warriors to be collected, leaving only Mime and Bud to go, along with the supporting characters of Hilda and Seiya in the Odin robe.

As with the rest of the series, the God Cloth is of an exceptional quality, with beautiful vibrant and correct coloring down to the shiny Odin Gem in his waistpiece, and comes with the option of an open or a closed mask.

Beware though, I actually bled during assembly of this model!!!

The underarm pieces have some darn sharp edges, and when you struggle to `click` on the fists, a common issue with new cloth models, I managed to pierce the skin on my fingers with those extensions.  All credits to Bandai, at least they didn`t snap off hehehe.

Another nice addition to the cloth is the inclusion of Buddy, Fenrir`s companion wolf and guardian angel during his youth, a nice touch to a nice robe from a very nice range of Myth Cloths!

Just a few more of the recent additions to add, and then i`ll do an oversight of the clothes I have in my cabinet so far, but now... back to the painting table!

Hobgoblin Backstabber conversion

Sneaky Gits must be about my most favorite unit of the Chaos Dwarf army alongside the Earthshaker and the Blunderbuss warriors, especcially in the 'old days' with their limitless lapping round and poisonous attacks special rules.

The trick was to make sure they didn`t break on the first round (hello nearby general) and then you could throw in a literally bucket of attack dice who with luck could circumvent the S/ T roll, making those pulcky little snitches even a threat to high armoured elite troops (okay, cavalry with their 1+ / 2+ save might have been pushing your luck, but elite infantry like Chaos Warriors certainly where toast), scrapping their rank bonus as an additional, well, bonus...

Currently working on a block of these blokes again, I decided to do a simple conversion to represent their unit champion, called a `Backstabber` in the Hobgoblins army book, and based upon a simple hobgob warrior.

The weapon was swapped with a huge plastic knife from the Marauder set I believe (dunno, been around in the bitz box for years) and a cut short chaos warrior cloak (the one with the fur interior)

With some `camouflage painting` this guy should soon be ready to lead the sneaky devils on the field of battle, even though the LoA list makes them `just` two hand weapon hobgoblin warriors (booh hiss) but they can still be themselves in either Ravening Hordes or the fan-made Hobgoblin book (hoozaah).

Goliath and Wonderman

A quick post, but it shows I`m still painting these days, albeit at very, very irregular intervals to show stuff.  Painting leagues and social life makes it all a bit more planned wise, as well as the preperations for a Mordheim campaign that starts 2013.  

And I might even stick to my promise to myself to actually prepare something in advance for the LPL next year (yeah right, as if) hehehe

Anyways the recent addition to my forces for Superhero gaming, which sadly we ain`t doing at all (blame the Creepy Corridor, damn you kung-fu Andy) are two of the members of the Avengers, Goliath (who was killed in the Civil War by the Thor android) and actor / superhero Wonderman.

I`m in a bit of a superhero paint craze in the few moments that I got spare between the entries for the Brush Slave League, so you`ll see some more over the comming weeks.  Heroclix models are a blessing to paint in between as they don`t even need a cleaning and an undercoat, just a color by color overpaint with a highlight and a rebasing, and they are good to go for being man-handled on the gaming table.

Golden Hat 17: War Machines

And so another Golden Hat painting competition has passed at Chaos Dwarfs Online, and what an awesome round it was, the theme being War Machines.

Now mind you, I did enter but I realise all to well that the level of workmanship is far above mine, so I`m doing that one with the olympic thought in mind, just like with most online leagues and such.

Here are the brave winners:

1st place: Skink

I also casted one of my three votes on this entry, the red is so lively and vibrant, yet deepish in tone

2nd place: Engra1980

The competition had quit a few `beast / war machine` hybrids in it, this one wasn`t on my list but it is a very nice piece of work with the lava drooling et all

3rd place: Bolg

An awesome scratchbuild Hellcannon, though once again I didn`t vote on this one

On which ones did I vote?  Well, apart from Skink`s entry, I voted on these two entries:

There is something that draws me to this entry, can`t really put my finger on it exactly, but I liked it from the first moment

Another of the beast / cannon hybrids, this one took my liking due to it`s `natural` feel, as if it just had materialized out of the lava.

You can see all entries on the link provided at the beginning of this post by the way...


Oh, and my entry?  No idea if it even got any votes, but it definitly was the smallest of all entrants hehehehe

Saint Seiya Myth Cloths: Shaka of Virgo and Camus of Aquarius

No less then two Gold Saints have swelled my ranks lately, and even though they are starting to show their age compared to the latest releases (Marin!) they still make for great lookers in my cabinet.

This is a short post as I`m swamped in work as well as doing the final hands (okay, final being relative, I estimate a months work left at least) on setting up my TCO account to complete three card games near my heart, more of that later on.

Bar that, I`m also involved at the moment in various painting competitions and can`t show the entries off as long as those rounds are going, but I promise to at least show off two repainted Heroclix figures tomorrow morning.

Shaka of Virgo is also known as the man closest to God, or even as the Little Buddha.  Without a doubt the most powerful of the Gold Saints, he manages to defeat and destroy about two dozen of Hades`s Spectres in one blow, a serious feat!

He is ultimately, and as later revealed, on purpose, killed by three fallen Gold knights in a scheme to reach the Underworld by forcing them to use the forbidden attack of the Saints, the Athena Acclamation

The model comes with a pedestal to pose Shaka in his signature meditation move as seen above.

The second Gold saint is the master of all the Ice saints, Camus.  In the magna he is the direct teacher of Hyoga, in the anime the Crystal saint is placed `between` them, but the Cygnus saint reveres him.  Not on the side of the Pope, Camus sole purpose when the Bronze saints mount the Twelve Palaces is by teaching Hyoga to become strong enough to save Athena.  First he encases the Cygnus saint in the Libra house, but later he is defeated by his young pupil when Hyoga copies and masters the ultimate ice attack, the Aurora Execution, nearly perishing himself in the absolute zero of the environment.

The model also comes with a Hyoga head, as the Cygnus swan will donn the cloth of Aquarius often afterwards, and will become the next Aquarius gold saint, though the Omega series still has to confirm this onscreen.