The Magician's Elephant

 It was a rainy sunday, making Thorin and Noshi sit down behind Netflix to watch this animation movie.

And myself as well from the dining room table as I was sorting through all my Underworlds cards, filtering and preparing all the Rivals parts of the decks.

Peter is an orphaned boy, who one day runs into a fortune teller.  He wants to know if his sister is still alive, but to find the answer he must find a mysterious elephant and the magician that will conjure it.  This elephant was summoned as a sign of hope to bring magic and warmth back to the village of Baltese, a grim place after the war.

Adele is alive though, and she is also using the elephant to lead her way back to Peter, as the siblings where seperated at a very young age.  Peter decides to save the locked-up elephant, and when the King arrives, he sets three impossible tasks for Peter to complete in order to obtain the elephant.  

First he must defeat a hardened veteran, Romain, which he does so by returning a book of fairy tales that was stolen from him by the fortune teller.  The second task requires Peter to fly, a feat he pulls off by a created parachute, but the final task is the hardest, as he must make the dour countess of Baltese laugh.  but when the elephant sneezes, covering the King in snot she bursts out laughing and thus allowing Peter to complete the assignment.

But Peter has changed his mind, no longer wanting the elephant for his own goals of finding his sister, but instead reuniting the beast with it's own lost family.  The elephant is magicked back to it's natural habitat by the wizard, and as the light returns to the town, so do Peter and Adele reunite, unknowingly having met before already...

So this was a nice little story about hope and love, and okay for a sunday afternoon spend watching television with the kid...

The Haul Report 376: Vive la France and Hail Hashut!

 Well, it actually came from Japan, but heck.

The P-Bandai HG Scale Gundam Rose is in my possession, one of the most elegant mobile suits I always found.

Thanks to Jacob, who lives in Japan, for obtaining one for me and mailing it to Belgium.

 

But apart from all the beers I obtained at the Modeste festival last weekend, a story you could read about earlier this week, I also got this Waterloo beerset including a stone cup.

 

 

But the best is as always for last, as I had this huge bunch of Fabelzel chaos dwarfs printed up, as well as a naptha thrower designed by my mate who did the printing himself. 

 

 

This will give me more then enough models to keep busy painting during 2024 as well...

On the Painting Desk 250

 So, the 250th time I report on my painting progress on this blog, a series that is going back for years.

And that is including some breaks when I wasn`t touching a brush by circumstances.

And in a bit of a fitting celebration way, the last tournament unit for the end of october is as good as finished, requiring only the varnish coat and the basing to be done.

That means time to start on some other projects, like my small Orktober contribution, and finish their movement trays once they arrive this week hopefully.

I honestly doubted I would pull it off, or would be closer to the deadline with the additional stress, but it is done woohoo.

Also meaning that once the side-projects are done for some change in palette, I can start expanding on the force and build up my mighty host once again!

Modeste Beer Festival

 Time for the second beer festival of the year, and this time organised by the ABC or Antwerps Bier College.

Taking place on the premises of brewery De Koninck, it featured about 40 breweries and traders, and their app is super handy as you could tap directly into Untapd to update the tasters.

So Noshi and me went in, and I had already a list of beers I wanted to try out.  So let's see how much the beer counter will be bumped on this saturday!

 

 

Noshi with her Sakura Lambic Cherry B(l)ossom, this wasn`t the greatest of beers, but the best of views for sure...

It took place as such at the terrain of De Koninck, where we are greeted by a huge mural of the Wild Jo, one of the beers brewed here.

The entrance was 5 euro, which gave you a taster glass.  These initially where the 2019 series, but you could exchange it at the end for a 2023 version.  Like usual, they are exchanged at the brewer stands for a clean one with your beer (very democratic at 1.5 euro for most beers, half of the Antwerp Beer Festival in price), and I have a story about that at the end.

The setup was a big hangar with a lot of the brewers present, and outside a large open square, where some more stands where set up.  As more people arrived, they set up extra benches, making sure people could have a cosy sitting place for some chatting.

The dixieband was present as well once again.

Many of the beers had great names, like this Schoon Gerief (meaning in english Nice Stuff, usually referencing to a lady in our dialect), and in the end I got to taste 16 different beers, some good, some not at all, but that is of course personal taste.  You can check all my experiences on my Untappd profile.

 

My personal favorites where, top to bottom:

 

 

1. Schapenkop by 't Paenhuys, a triple of 8% ABV and 0 IBU

2. Bruismelk by Vleesmeester, a 6.5% ABV IPA with also 0 IBU

3. Al Blondy by Speciale Belge Brewers, 7% ABV with 25 IBU

Except for some very bitter prune beer, I didn`t complain to much about my selections of the day (or those of my companions, as we taste each others drinks and we all have very different styles, Noshi for example prefering fruit beers).

And of course, there is LOOT

I bought one of the raffle tickets, which yielded this Duvel gift set including a glass, and the Cytra which I like a lot.  The other one I`ll probably serve to Ribbi when they visit next time.

From Green Gold Brewing, a company from Slovenia, I bought a six pack of their beers with very lovely beercan art on it!

But finally, that story about the glass.  Somewhere down the line, I guess two or three beers in, I suddenly noticed my galss was exchanged for a 2012 version.  This is really vintage, as this is one of the very first edition of the festival.  

So I went to get drinks, clearly stating to clean but not exchange it please, and two breweries (Leroy and Cabardouche) actually where genuinly jealous about this, as it seems to be hard to find.  Noshi told me that when she went to exchange their 2019 for 2023 versions, the guy behind the counter also told her this must have been a lucky fluke, as those glasses have been long gone from the available one.  So this goes on my shelf of cool bottles and cans for sure as a great souvenir!

But in general, this event was a definite winner, and one we will certainly be joining again next year.  Great selection, really cheap compared to others we attended over the past 18 months when we started doing this, and a very amical mood location.

Highly recommended!

Fall 2023 Fantasy Anime League selection

 So, after the once again not so great performance in the summer 2023 edition, I never the less jumped back in for the Fall edition.

And now I did my research... not.  One day gut feeling will rule.

The season has once more restricted series, and I picked two from them of course.

Tokyo Revengers immediatly went to the actives, while Dr Stone, which starts airing during the second week of the challenge, went to the bench to be swapped in during the second week.

And then I had 61 selections to pick from... this will be hard.  Another one I picked and benched due to a later airing date, probably swapping it in the week after Dr Stone, was Dead Mount Death Play part 2.  While considering the cult status of FLCL, I picked the new Grunge series as well, and again benched to swap in after it started airing.  Filling up my bench already, but this time with titles bound to come in.

 

And then I learned FLCL was a short 3 episode mini-series that aired end of september, and as a result a "dead" choice in my bench as it already finished airing as the season started.  This season truly isn't looking promising...

And leaving me with no clue what to take for the rest (Shield Hero for obvious reasons wasn't a possibility), so I went with things I plan to watch.

Overtake for example, a series focussed on formula 1.  Or the third season of Uma Musuma, the previous ones having done well.  Saihate no Paladin and Hametsu no Oukoku rounded out my active starters, because I like fantasy shows, and they are airing from the first week to snatch up early points!

But more then that isn`t planned... so let's see how we will be fairing once again over the coming weeks...  I seriously doubt I`ll make if further then the bottom 95% with my selection, as I have no clue on a lot of shows as I said above.  Sometimes picks are easy because either it are sequels to shows I follow, or they are mecha (not that that yields great results, but at least I knew the series), this time, it really was an all out of the blue selection.

Now, to see and pray I rake in some points along the way...

Summer Fantasy Anime League 2023 result

 And so another 13 weeks have passed of hoping how my picked list did in this season.

Would I manage to get back in my personal goal of the top 50%, or would my stubborn refusal to study like some do bite me once again?

So how did my picked anime's perform?

The Devil is a Part-timer season 3: Barely used, it ended on the 23rd place overal

Zom 100: The winner of the season, and probably the first time I guessed the nr 1 series

Bungou Stray Dogs season 5: A solid podium in 3rd place

Atelier Ryza: Far below my expectations, this finished in 34th place

Reborn as a Vending Machine: a good one in 18th place

Spy Classroom season 2: only activated in the final week, this ended 30th

Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero: a good result at 19th place

Liar Liar: lower then I guessed, it came in 21st

And my progress from week to week went like this:

Week 1: 44634 pts, 22662 th place - swapped in Liar Liar for Part-Timer, unsuccesfully aced Atelier Ryza

Week 2: 202711 pts, 21464 th place - swapped in Bungo for Level 1

Week 3: 543685 pts, 15086 th place - succesfully aced Bungo

Week 4: 670941 pts, 16944 th place - swapped out Ryza for Level 1

Week 5: 960307 pts, 13964 th place - aced Liar Liar succesfully

Week 6: 1113204 pts, 15102 th place

Week 7: 1422755 pts, 17191 th place

Week 8: 1504636 pts, 18815 th place

Week 9: 1765241 pts, 19469 th place

Week 10: 2039008 pts, 19856 th place

Week 11: 2171678 pts, 20025 th place

Week 12: 2433246 pts, 20192 th place

Week 13: 2953315 pts, 20131 the place, swapped Liar Liar for Spy Classromm, used Wild Card for the points booster

Well, that was a season, with Zom100 being a breakout hit indeed, so fast actually I couldn`t actually ace it.  Bungo did perform as expected, but Atelier Ryza was a serious underperformer though, dropping in numbers every week and letting me bring the better then expected performing Level 1 back in.  So even though I succesfully got some aces in, this meant after week 5 I steadily began dropping in the rankings.

So in the end?  I finished in the top 66% of the season, a bit lower then I aimed but it did turn out okay considering the series that fell through as mentioned above...

I don`t have much hope though for the Fall season that now has started, as I felt like a fish out of the water when I needed to select series.  There just weren't many that caught my gut-feeling... so we will see how that goes in their relative postings.

Warmonger issue 2

 Fanzines, they are a lovely thing!

Just like the old GW magazines that came to a specific game system, or the unofficial rules magazine they produced, Citadel Journal, this is always fun to read stuff.

Over the years, I collected quit a lot of them, and these days they can also be found often online as the days of the printed medium has been switched for digital PDF's.  And I`ll be reviewing some of them occassionally over the coming months.  Bear in mind though, it are usually Chaos Dwarf suited magazines, because that is my boat, but not always.

And today we will have a look at the second volume of the Warmonger fanzine.  It can be found online, or if you like, contact me and I can pass the PDF on.  I obtained this issue myself that way, by someone I follow on Instagram (Tom Evans) and contributed the Dawi'Zharr article in the fanzine.  Sharing is caring!

 

And his Big Hats article is not only the cover story, but also the first article in this issue, talking about their origins all the way back in 1994 and how the Dawi'Zharr are a niche within a niche. Now, if you are a Chaos Dwarf afficionado like me and still own a lot of the old metals this is nostalgia, but if you want to start collecting a force of the typical big hat style, prepare to shelf out an arm and a leg for them in the aftermarket.  Never the less, this is one article that can be certainly enjoyed.

There are some follow up articles, like Steam and Steel, that give great alternate model ideas to build a force, and rules to use these in friendly games as such.  The models and stats are for the Modhidius Games models for The Elder Scrolls.

But there is also an article on the fantastic range of 3D printed miniatures from Lost Kingdom Miniatures, especially their monimental scenery pieces.

Rules Creep is an article about that well known fact in Games Workshop and other game system manufacturers: the new kid on the block always has the upper hand (except if you are a Space Marine), exemplified with the back then new High Elf book.  Because that means people would start and buy the new range of an army that will beat all comers.

So a nice little fanzine, and apart from 2 pages totally Chaos Dwarf-centric, so if you love the coolest of armies ever to have graced the Old World, this is a totally must have to download!

 

September 2023 Loot

 Into the last trimerster of the year, or the first if you are a student, so let's see what this month granted me in anime loot...

And this time, it is about figures...

So without further ado, the links:

 

Seiya, Kurumi: the most recent addition to the collection from TokyoCatch crane games.

 

So, that means two fresh figures for the collection this month.  Next month, I`m expecting a kit from Japan, as well as some more manga, so stay tuned!

The Haul Report 375

 Reading time this week, as I picked up an as good as new Black Library novel through Vinted.

Found with a seller in italy, at 8 euro this hardback book was a steal.

Written by Dale Lucas, Realm-Lords is set in the Age of Sigmar universe, putting the Lumineth against a raving warband of Slaaneshi followers.

It might be a while before I actually start reading it, but for that price I wouldn't let it pass!