Stranger Things series 3

 Another series I picked up to finish after Noshi dropped out, and again a long time since the previous viewing, but heck, let's finish this!

I loved the first season of Stranger Things and the second was fine as well, of course the soundtrack being a nostalgia trip for someone of my errrrrm time on this planet.

 

Years before the events of the second season, the Russians tried to open a gate to the Upside Down as well.  In the meantime, Hawkins has seen the opening of the Starcourt Mall, which has become the center of attention in the little town.  Joyce is considering moving out of Hawkins after the events of season 2, while Hopper disapproves of Eleven's relationship with Mike.

When Dustin accidentally intercepts a russian transmission, turning to Steve and his coworker Robin with it.  Billy is dragged of the road when his car is ran off, and dragged into a mill where he meets a doppleganger.  He gets possessed by the Mind Flayer, whom Will had privately sensed that it is still alive.

Nancy and Jonathan investigate a mysterious rat case, seeing one of them exploding into a puddle of biomass.  But experiencing sexism, her story is buried by her superiors, unbeknown her head of the newspaper is also under the Mind Flayers control and he wants to keep his return silent.  Eleven senses something worng with Billy, and together with Max goes to check it out, but it all seems in order.  Never the less, together with the boys they trick him into a sauna, revealing that the Mind Flayer has indeed returned.

Dustin and Steve, together with Robin who had cracked the russian code and Erica break into a mysterious isolated room in the mall.   It turns out to be an elevator though, bringing them to a secret russian facility under the town, where they try and re-open the gate Eleven had closed.  Hopper and Joyce have been investigating abandoned properties, and while capturing a russian scientist, they barely escape a hitman after him.  They go to see Murray, who speaks russian, learning the plan of the russians underneath their town.

As the various groups converge together, they decide to take on the russians and close the gate afain, which should bring down the Mind Flayer as well.   As the beast corners the children, Max gets through to Billy who sacrifices himself to save them, while Hopper takes out the hitman, but as time ran out he orders Joyce to close the gate by triggering an explosion that takes him with it.  The Mind Flayer's physical body dies as a result, and the government arrives at Starcourt.

Three months later the cover up for the death's is in place, and Joyce's family, together with a powerless Eleven due to the battle in the mall, prepare to move out of Hawkins, as in Russia a prisoner is fed to a captured Demogorgon...

So, it had a break before I continued watching, but it is not a bad season.  Even though I`m not on the Stranger Things hypetrain, it is a good series to watch during painting series though, and I`ll tackle season 4 in the near future I guess.

The 9th Age: Infernal Dwarf Rocket Battery

 While back in the days of old Warhammer the missile launcher was the smaller of the Chaos Dwarf war machines, in the 9th Age it is actually the more expensive one in their arsenal.

But never the less, it still is a weapon of mass destruction, and I included one in my renewed force, made by spanish company MOM Miniatures.

 

This resin cast model is pretty straightforward to assemble, as I showed in a small unboxing video on YouTube.  So with the crew based and the missile launcher assembled, I went on to painting the machine.

 

 

In size it is compareble to the old metal GW launcher, and as per the rules for T9A I based it on a round base, with the crew seperate just for the "rule of cool".

Gamewise, it actually seems more effective, and at least pointswise more expensive, then the Titan Mortar, mostly due to the fact it is no longer a rocket powered bolt thrower but rather a catapult like weapon.  But definitly far less erratic then in Warhammer 4th edition and beyond...

So together with the Titan Mortar that now completes the artillery segment for my budding force, meaning it is time to start painting up the heaps of rank and file troops for the force, probably starting with the like 50+ greenskins for the various levies units I`ll be taking along.

Praise Hashut!

On the Painting Desk 232

 Hehe, so finally that last battlesuit to make the first 1.000 points is in the stage of just basing, together with it's accompanying drones.

To bad the force won't ever see play as 9th ends this summer and 10 arrives, throwing everything once again on it's head.

Oh well, at least the force looks nice on the shelf, I`ll do an overview post in the near future as such.

 

So that means it's time to move to other venues, and that is assembling and painting the Infernal Dwarf army for the tournament end of october.  This means I'll need to complete a unit of at least 20 figures per month, and as such I have been glueing away recently.

 

 

 

The first unit I`m working are the rest of the Archer levies, to complement the few already done in the colourscheme test of a few weeks ago.  Progress on them is going very smooth, and with some luck I might be varnishing and base preparing them by the end of the week.

 

Also, the Prophet, who will support my force with some fireballs, has been put together and will be started on during the coming week.

 

 

So that will be a lot to do still this week, before kicking into high gear to paint them up! In the meantime, once I can get to the store for some fresh packs of superglue, I`ll be clipping of the slots of more levies, this time for a big unit of 30 armed "normally" to create a juicy block to threaten enemy flanks.

All that remains now is mail order the last models needed for the tournament itself then...

 

 

Deals fit for a King

 God save the King!

With the crowning the past week, Wayland Games is offering a selection of 30% discounted items.

 

 

So have al look, click the banner above this post and grab the royalty games and miniatures to your liking!

Unboxing The Horns of Hashut for WarCry

 The Father of Darkness is back in the lore of Age of Sigmar, and it is actually the same deity from the World that Was.

Yes, the lore is starting to incorporate the Chaos Dwarves again, albeit in a special way, as these are humans who sold their soul to their dark masters to avoid being eradicated.

And they are one of the warbands in the current season of WarCry, a game I don`t really play, but there is also a battlescroll for them that can attach them to a Legion of Azgorh force.  So needless to say, once I found out about this coming out of my hiatus, I just needed to have them. 

But without further ado, let's open this box I bought at Wayland Games (feel free to go shop there using the banner above this post, it helps me out a lot!) and which arrived a few days later.

So, that looks like a fun side project for the not so near future!

MSM-04N Agguguy 1/400 scale gachapon

 Time to show off another completed, repainted gachapon model in 1/400 scale for MechaTop, and it is one of the ZZ Gundam suits this time.

And for some reason, I end up with a heap of aquatic suits finishes, probably because their often comical look subconsciously attracts my attention...

The Agguguy as said debuted in anime during the ZZ series, and looks like a bulked out version of the Acguy aquatic mobile suit, of which it is a development.  His bulk comes from his heavy armour, and was designed for close combat with it's main armament of dual heat rods.

There weren't that many build actually according to the lore, as their construction plant was destroyed by Char early in the One Year War, to some ended up with the Tigerbaum colony civilians as seen in ZZ.

The model itself was fun to paint, as the big plates allow for some smooth and easy painting, yet the end result gives a unified, solid look.  And the brown is a welcome change after the usual frequent colours of either white / blue / red or mostly greens for most mobile suits from the Universal Century.

Maybe one day I should run a force of only aquatic suits in a game of MechaTop and see how that goes...

Rough Diamonds

 A flemish / international series now streaming on Netflix, Rough Diamonds tells the tale of a jewish diamond family that came into rough waters.

And I still worked in the district when it was filmed, so let's see if we are grabbing some screentime!

Noah is the black sheep of the Wolfson family, having refused to step into the diamond business as his tate wanted.  He returns to Belgium from his job in London when his younger brother Yanki commits suicide, a result of high gambling debts.  But there is more at hand, which brings the company in dire waters.

 

It turns out he has been making deals with the Albanian maffia, who are using diamonds for laundring their drug money.  The family has to pay up his debts, as Noah finds a solution, even though it might not be totally legal.  he has been living a shady life it seems, as his mother in law is the leader of a gang in London, running a druglab herself, and she brokers the deal between them.

 

When, in order to fullfil an order of the maffia that was necessary to be made for the company to survive, Eli and Adina vote on an indian diamant trader to become the next president of the Bourse, their dad collapses from a stroke, and Noah starts to return to the ways of his family. 

When his father dies, Eli tries to get the company from all three heirs, influenced by Benny.  But the plan fails, and instead Adina is named sole successor by their mom.  However, she refuses and splits the shares along the three of them, while Benny is removed and blocked from the market.  But Noah is put in a hard spot, as Kendra and the Albanian maffia want to continue their whitewashing drugtraffic.

Eli decides to go co-operate with the police, going to a secret banker that laundry's money.  In the meantime, Noah has to set up a meeting between the Albanians and a Brazilian minister, but he backs out in the end.  This results in his family and company being threatened, and when they even go as far as approach his son, he decides to try and take matters in his own hands.  With the police on their tail as Eli backed out of becomming a witness to hand information about money laundring, Noah goes to steal diamonds from a company a friend of his works at.

But he is planning a set-up with those stones, and even though it goes sour at first, he manages to solve the issues for both himself, the company and even the district.  Even though it is at the expense of his family in London as he has to make the hard choice of which one to save, and which one to send to jail...

To be honest, I liked the series because I was there when it was filmed and it is fun to see the buildings and all again (and the mistakes in layout on how it is presented on screen versus how the district actually is), but the story itself... far less.  And it was quite unrealistic on some points I can`t disclose.

The answer to the screentime btw is: 0.  Seems I ended on the cutting table, so after all the regional television appearances in my life, I guess I`ll have to wait some more before I break out through Netflix x-D.  Oh well, there is always OnlyFans I guess...

M353A4 Bloodhound Hover Truck 1/400 scale resin model

 The next set of figures I painted up from the MechaTop sample pack I received a while ago, it is the tiny hover trucks.

Containing two in the set, these are really tiny models about 1.5 centimeter in length and a centimeter wide, so that is some serious tweaking to be done on them.

While basically three shades of grey, these weren't that uberhard as such to paint though, just needed some attention on putting which grey where.

The tanks itself first debuted in the 08th MS Team series, and have been seen often in Gundam series eversince.  On the battlefield, they are generally support vehicles, lightly armed and armoured, and will make nice convoy objectives and the likes in games.

The detailing of the casts was perfect for that small scale, with even the turret gun visible on the tiny trucks, so top notch stuff.

Now to get on to the next project!

The Expanse season 5

 Finally I started to catch up with the highly rated series The Expanse, having to see this and the next season.

But when I started, I went through it like a knife in hot butter, because this remains awesome sci-fi.

Their lives settling down a bit after the events of the last season, the crew of the Rocinante faces some of the demons of their past.  Like Amos, going back home to reconcile with his past.  But they can`t rest easy, as someone is still going after the protomolecule.

Avasarala, no longer president, and admiral Delgado call in the opinion of the private sector, learning that an asteroid was set to be used as a missile against Earth.  They show him the Hasami files, telling him it must remain a secret.  In the meantime, Alex and Bobby investigate a Mars based smuggling operation, Bobby suspecting a high admiral to be part of it.  

Camina and her men find the stripped down vessel of Ashford, while Fred Johnson is advised to go in a safe place, which he refuses, as Cortazar, the scientist working on the protomolecule, is kidnapped.  Naomi tries to reunite with her lost son Philip, but he tricks her.  Marcos found a way to throw asteroids at Earth passing by the watching system, and one of them crashes into our planet, with the effect of a nuclear warhead.

As Earth remains pummeled by asteroids, Avasarala contacts Nancy, her presidential successor, to activate the Watchtower defence system.  But as she agrees, her plane is blown away by the shockwave of another asteroid impact.  Amos meets in the Pit, a heavy security facility, with Clarissa, while Naomi is brought before Marcos and learns his master plan.  

Fred Johnson is attacked and killed when Tycho station is attacked, as his protomolecule sample is stolen.  This forces Holden to take control and assemble a new crew on the Rocinante, as the others are all stuck in personal issues.  Amos is making his way out of the destroyed prison after it was hit by a meteorite, Alex and Bobbi are hunting smugglers in the Belt, making a dangerous discovery, while Naomi is still captured aboard Marcos's and her son Philip's vessel.

Holden takes the Rocinante out to hunt Marcos, who is facing a bit of a crisis on his ship as his trusted lieutenants refuese to space Naomi from the airlock.  She tries to get through to Philip that marcos only cares about himself and not their lives.  Drummer gets up to Marcos's fleet, but realising she is outgunned enters talks and is offered a position by Marcos.  They choose to join them by exchanging crews.

Marcos and Naomi both try to influence the choices of their son Philippe, Marcos winning out though as Philippe blames Naomi of leaving her as a baby.  They are going to use her vessel to destroy the Rocinante, but she jumps through the airlock at the last moment and to her ship.

On Earth, Amos and his Clarissa are working to get back to space, while David Pastor, one of the remaining cabinet members now sworn as Secretary General, and Avasarala loom for ways to hunt down Marcos.  In the meantime Naomi struggles for dear life to disable the trap, as the Rocinate is on it's way to her location.

But Paster wants to attack the Belt and civilian targets, resulting in a vote of non-confidence and Avasarala put forward as oppositional candidate, as she wants to try and work a more peaceful solution, even though fuming for the death of her husband in the attacks.  Amos and Clarissa repairing a shuttle to leave Earth, but others want to prevent it and take all belongings instead, resulting in a firefight and Clarissa using her powers briefly.  They manage to launch together with other villagers towards Luna though.  

Alex and Bobbi go after Naomi, while the Rocinante engages the Free Navy fleet, planning to unload all her magazines in their faces and give Marcos his war.  As they approach Drummer's ships, se starts a mutiny to free themselves back from Marcos's grip.  Taking out the other vessel, she opens a path for Rocinante to punch through.  Alex and Bobbi manage to retrieve Naomi, who managed to warn them with hand signals.  But the war is far from over, as Marcos battles his way through the ring gate.

The Rocinante is declared an independant vessel not flying any flag, set out to hunt Marcos in the next season... and this was a nice one once more.  I won't be waiting that long to watch the next (and final one) for sure...