Thor Ragnarok

Yesterday evening and this morning, me and Noshi watched the latest Thor instalment from the Marvel stable.

Now, we both liked it for the fact it was light and humorous, the sort of superhero films we both prefer compared to the more dark and gloomy DC films.

Thor arrives back in Asgard after fighting Surtur, and discovers that his father Odin has been replaced by Loki.  He forces his brother to reveal the location where he brought him, but after only retrieves his father after involvement by Dr Strange.  Odin is dying however, and his demise brings forth his banished firstborn, Hela, Godess of Death.

She is sickened by how Odin turned into a benevolent ruler instead of a conqueror, and vows to pick up his former conquesting way of life.  Thor and loki thry to stop her, but they are tossed onto a gladiator planet ruled by the Grandmaster (a superb Jeff Goldblum), where Thor finds his old Avenger collegue Hulk.
He convices him and the Valkyrie to join him and return to Asgard, in order to defeat Hela.  With Mjolnir shattered, he has to unleash his inner powers as the God of Thunder, and is forced to fullfil the prophecy of Ragnarok...

A great amusement film, the movie screams 80s over the whole line.  The music (including the same one as used for Wonder Woman ironically) is just great and the colourfull settings make you feel, well, happy.  Definitly the most colourfull and light hearted of the Thor movies, this was a nice thingie to watch without hurting your brain.

But I just can`t get over it that not only they did, but also the way they did, kill off the Warrior Three...

Aftermath: this was nice viewing as well, the openingceremonie of the Winter Olympics.

Knightfall

The first season of a new historical drama series on History has just ended, and it`s a bt of a mixed bag for me.

You see, I`m still not sure wether I like it, or dislike it, as the differences in strenghts are so wide.

Based on the rise and fall of the Knights Templar in France, orchestrated by Philip IV, the series follows the (fictional) Master of the Paris temple, Landry.  A confidant of the fallen Godfrey of Bouillon, he is out to retrieve the Holy Grail for his order, after it was lost in the promised land.  This brings him in contact with the mysterious Brotherhood of Light, as intrigues start building up as not only they, but also the Pope are after the Grail for his own devices.

It was, as a said, a bit of a mixed series for me personally.  On the one hand, it had some really strong story arcs and some unexpected twists.  On the other hand, it also had some very weak ones that seemed to serve to just have a likeable character die (Parcifal's line for example). 

Wait and see I guess what season 2 will bring

On the Painting Desk 33

Well, I didn`t paint that much the past week, mainly finishing some ACW command.

But I hope for this week to finish a full regiment, though doubtfull, and at least one of the remaining bonus entries...

The Tijl entry will definitly get done, and I will be in between working on some other loose figures.

Next week, a lot of changes on the desk can be expected though, as I`ll have three nights the coming week to stroke away at full speed, and I plan on making the most out of that for sure as the challenge has passed it's halfway mark.

Paint away!

Noshi's Pick: OtherLife

While strolling through NetFlix past wednesday, the girlfriend found this movie on it and we sat down to watch it.

At first, we thought it would be something in inception style, but this australian made sci-fi thriller is a tat different though.

Ren is the lead designer of a computer anno durg programme called OtherLife, which she created to give her brother Jared a new take on life.  The bloke has been in a coma since he had an accident scuba diving, and with this technology he could live out a life while just lying there.
However, her boyfriend dies when using the technology unsupervised, and as a result Ren must go to jail as a test subject.  The OtherLife drug will be used to compromise a year of incarceration into a minute, giving her the experiences of it happening.

Some things don`t work out though, as she is being held longer in the drug induced state as her business partner wants to sign a government contract for this durg, something she refuses as that wasn`t why she developped it.  So she now has to find a way out of the dream life...

It was a nice movie to be honest, bit under the radar (aka totally) her in western europe it seems.  It plays out well and it actually doesn`t have to many insane plotholes, which these days is a plus.  And although you can guess quite fast when she is either in or already out of her dreamworld, it still was a bit of revelation exactly how and when that transition of awareness takes place.

Watch it for sure if you have an hour and a half to spare!

Generals Hancock and Zook

A bit less (well, far less) then I wanted to get finished this week, but big club battles took up a lot of time, as such I didn`t get as many painting hours in as I estimated.

But never the less, now that my target has been achieved, I can focus more on painting models for future 2018 events, then actually reducing lead mountain with dribs and drabs, so most of my remaining time will be divided by ACW as I work further on my II Corps, 1st Division at Fredericksburg.   

Not that particular battle, but in june TSA will host a big battle with the "in house made" game rules, so I`m putting the pedal to the metal on these guys to expand my force.  Apart from that, I guess another pink assault will appear here as well before the challenge ends... for the 65000 points Warhammer 40k battle in May.

But back on track, this weeks entry is the commander of my force, Gen. Hancock, and his retinue.

Apart from him, I also painted up the general for my third division, Samuel K. Zook.

The final part of the entry are the command models for my 28th Massachusetts regiment, aka one fifth of the Irish Brigade.  I hadn`t gotten round to completing that unit so now that is settled as well.

Flags are by GMB Designs for the divisional one, and Flags of War for the 28th, while all the figures are by the Perry's.

And now to paint the next regiment for my force...

The gift of Gundam

One of the models that will feature in the big Lords of War battle we will be running at TSA on the last friday of april, this ZGMF-X56S Impulse Gundam, in his Sword mode, is ready for battle.

Now, how does this came to be?

Well, first of all, let me state I neither build nor painted this particular GunPla.  It was gifted to me years ago by Sven, after we tried some Gundam skirmish rules I was writing at the time, called Gundanium.  And with what we never did anything apart from a battle report that still can be found on this blogpage, here.

But now, in a sort of "hommage", I`m taking that one along.  You see, as I said last week, I will be fielding a Gundam force in 40k, I`m just doubting to go either for the Tau or the Knights list to represent them with, but for the battle, as I`m a chaos Emperor's Children player, he will be using the rules from the Traitoris knights. 

The Knight Castigator to be precise, who is mobile, comes with a huge melee sword in the form of the Tempest Blade, and has a heavy bolter cannon.  So with his two swords as the Tempest blade, and his rifle at his feet to represent the bolter, that is a nice match.  I did glue his feet to the base and the weapons have been arranged and glued, in order to improve gaming stability.

Because we will be commanding two Knights a player, and while sizewise a bit smaller and less wide then a reguler knight, as you can see on the comparison picture, they fill about the same cubic space side by side.

It`ll be hard for me to pick the favorite to play with in that battle ;-)

After War Gundam X

As I write this, I bow my head and say mea culpa...

You see, I kept saying I saw everything there is on Gundam, being series, ova, webseries, the lot...

... and then I was looking through my GunPla models for my "Gundam project" in 40k... and couldn`t with the best of my mental abilities place one of the suits in a series (the Leopard btw).  A quick research learned that... I missed out on this series from 1996, only having seen the follow up OVA and thought that was all there was on the Gundam X and Garrod Ran.

Set in an alternate timeline, though one that has a lot in common with the Universal one, the Earth Federation had lost the war against the colonies, and the colonies have been dropped on the planet, ruining it.  Garrod is a looter, and like many humans a survivor, who lives 15 years after these events.  When he is hired to retrieve a girl, Tifa Adill, he discover the mobile suit called Gundam GX-9900, of Gundam X for short due to the panels on it's back.

When the moon is out, a superheavy weapon, the Satellite Canon, can be fired by a beam transmitted from an empty base on the moon.  The suit was originally piloted by Jamil Neate during the war, and was back then a mass produced MS.  However, due to the cataclysm, this relic is now one of the strongest, and unique, weapons around.  Later in the series, the Double X would be introduced, not an upgrade but a suit developped by the enemy (and stolen by Garrod) to counted the X.

Jamil and his Vultures recruit Garrod in an effort to protect the few surviving Newtypes on Earth, and prevent them being exploited.  However, as the world slowly rebuilds, so does corruption and lust for power once again, and soon the Vultures are beset from all sides in an effort to prevent a cataclysmic war from happening all over again...

This was actually a decent series, with the usual mixture of turncoats and politics.  The fact it`s set in a rather post-apocalyptic world adds a nice twist to the franchise, where usually big factories are aplenty and forces in abundance.

And now my shame has been erased and after three days of benching I can once again say I saw it all!

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge goal completed

Well, I guess I`ve done it and achieved the first goal of 2018...

With the past weekends Noise Marines entry in the AHPC8 bonus Music round, I broke through the 750 goal I set myself and completed that goal for the year.

The entry took me to a lovely 797 points, so from now on everything I will be painting is "extra" on top of what I finished, starting with uploading more troops tomorrow.  maybe for myself I will raise the bar a little and aim for the 1000 points instead, a goal that is feasible.

In this little video, you can see all the models I painted up so far for the challenge, and which will give me after the 20th of march a whole lot to redistribute and add to my excisting forces, but for now I`m keeping them all nicely together to have an easier oversight of completed figures.

The future will be a lot less pressurised to reach goals, though I will try to enter something at least every week, and complete all the bonus rounds.  But what exactly that I will be painting first is now all a bit up in the air, as I tried to make "solid" posts in one theme so far, and now that might change in a few more "a bit of everything" sorts of posts.

Though I will end as I started, with some more 6mm epic figures.  That is the one thing I did decide for myself at the moment I jumped in this adventure :-)

But now, back to the brushes...

Music of the Apocalypse

For this Bonus round, I went to the power of pink once again.  

I was rummaging through Lead Mountain, when I realised that I didn`t have that much of "musical" models at all lying around, and then I found three ancient Noise Marines.

Equipped with all the typical instruments to ply their trade, being to rip your eardrums to pieces, I dug up a Blastmaster, a Sonic Blaster and a Doom Siren marine.

Still from the all metal era of Games Workshop (bar the backpacks), these would suit the bonus theme perfectly, so I sat down and painted them up the past weeks.

I went for more colours to make them curse and look extravagant compared to my more normal pink and black scheme to really make then stand out on the table as the elite of Slaanesh's followers, using olives and blues for additional extravaganza.

And that is another 15 points basic to the tally, resulting in the goal I set myself, being 750 points, being reached, woop woop woop!!!