Ahsoka

 One of the things I'm trying to do this year is finally catch up on all the Marvel and Star Wars series I skipped the past years, in no particular order.

 

And as such, the first journey to a galaxy far, far away brings me to Ahsoka, a series based on Anakin Skywalker's padawan from the Rebels series (of which I only got to season 2 btw, so guess I'll need to catch up on those as well).

 

Now, that is one of the issues I want to adress immediately for this series.  If you rolled into it after seeing her appear in The Mandalorian, you might want to know more about her.  But the series draws heavily on the Clone Wars series, as it is an actual continuation on that storyline.

 

What I can say though, the thread of Grand Admiral Thrawn returning is one that has been a long time in the Star Wars now "extended" canon of pre-Disney novels.  If you haven't, go read the Heir to the Empire series, and you will see a figure even more intimidating then the one depicted in this series.  

 

Central to the series is on the one hand the rumoured return of the admiral, as well as finding back Ezra Bridger, the padawan turned Jedi from the above named animated series.  Sabine Wren still isn't over his disappearance, and goes out to search for him, together with Ahsoka who wants to prevent Morgan Elsbeth, assisted by Baylan Skoll and his apprentice Shin Hati.  Old Imperial agents are trying to adapt to the new Galactic Republic, but not all agree and want to bring back Thrawn.

 

What follows is first a journey to discover where the grand admiral, and by extension Ezra, went, and once they reached that destination by spacewhale taxi services, the story to try and stop Thrawn returning to the galaxy.  Needless to say, they fail on both accounts, the series ending with Thrawn on the way back and Ahsoka and her friends stranded on a far away planet.

 

It was an enjoyable series, with some nice lightsaber duelling, which is after all what Star Wars is all about.  The arcs for the characters have started to bloom, both from the "light" and the "dark" side, but it will be needed to see the second season come to fruition on how those pan out.  Though sadly, that will be with a recasted Baylan, as Ray Stevenson left us in 2023 unfortunatly.

 

But surely worth the watch, even though some episodes are really on the short side (like more Marvel and Star Wars shows tend to have, not having the fixed runtime of most series of around 45 minutes), so a nice calm weekend day should be enough to binge through the series as such. 

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

 Time to work some more on catching up all the missed MCU and Star Wars expanded series and occassional movies, and time it's She-Hulk.

 

As well as some movies, and I ain't be watching them in release sequence, just as I feel like. 

 

But first off, most of the episodes are short, barely hitting the 30 minute mark... but as I had holidays in the final week of last year and the first of this year, some serious binging has been done while recuperating from just to much holiday seasonal food...

 

Now, what we have here is a great fun series, with an excellent Tatiana Maslany in the lead role of lawyer Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk, who turned a member of the "green powerhouse family" by an accidental blood transfer from her cousin Bruce Banner.  Except she has better control over her powers.  And Hulk isn't the only character to make the cross-over into this series, as Abomination, Wong, and even Daredevil (nicely tying the Netflix series more into the MCU) also make their appearances.

 

The series also breaks the fourth wall often in a Deadpool style, as Jen comments to the viewers on that this is "her" show, and not a thing to bring back various other characters, even going as far in the finale that she meets an AI called K.E.V.I.N. to discuss how it is written and played out (a wink to MCU head honcho Kevin Feige).  To be honest, this was perhaps just a bit taking it to far to take the series "serious", in how you of course can do so for a bunch of superpowered people smashing each other around.

 

We get a nine episode series as such with a lot of politics as someone called the "Hulkking" is out to bring She-Hulk down, a romance between Jennifer and Matt Murdock in her hopeless dating life, and some hilarious courtroom action as well.  And a great appearance by the most awesome villains of all, The Wrecking Crew!

 

This is definitly one of the funnier Marvel MCU series that they produced, and it might still be that a second season will be made, though no greenlight (no pun inteded) on that one so far.

 

But we sure hope so! 

 

 

 

 

Age of Sigmar battlereport: Idoneth Deepkin vs Slaves to Darkness

 Time for the first game of the new year, and it is an actual Age of Sigmar "refresher" game for the rules.

 

Because due to circumstances, I only played it a few time before... in 2nd edition, apart from some Spearhead.  But now we played 1000 points just to freshen up the rules.

 

I brought my Idoneth Deepkin, and on purpose took something of about everything to have a look at how things worked.  A unit of Legends because I allow them from the go in the Escalation League  and contains a wizard, a Regiment of Renown,  cavalry and infantry, and a monstrous mount.  Guess bar war machines / shooting units and a priest, I managed to cover all bases.

 

My force was organised as follows:

 

Regiment 1: An Akhelian King on Deepmare with the Armour of Cythai and the Form of Fangmora, an Allopex with a Razorshell Harpoon and a unit of 3 Morrsarr Guard with full command.

 

Regiment 2: An Akhelian Thrallmaster (Ghyran version), 10 Namarti Thralls (Ghyran version) with champion, and Cyreni's Razors from the Legends section

 

Regiment 3: A Stumblefoot Giant regiment of renown.

 

And I picked the Akhelian Beastmaster battle formation with Wrathful Cycles and Scouting Force battleplans. 

 

Facing me was Noah with a force of Slaves to Darkness, consisting of two drops.

 

Regiment 1: Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount with Radiance of Dark Glory, a regiment of Chaos Knights

 

Regiment 2: Chaos Lord with Head of the Unworthy, a unit of Chaos Chosen with the Dread Banner and a unit of Chaos Warriors.

 

He had Master the Paths and Intercept and Recover as Battletactics suite, and my Thralls, Taskmaster and Cyreni's Razors carried the treasure. 

 

So with both forces drawn up and ready for action, it was time to begin hostilities. 

 

Cyreni immediatly had herself and the Razors Steed of Tides to the other side of the battlefield (mind you, they actually deployed further to the side edge, but I was still placing them while making the picture), in order to either cause a distraction or go for the objective on the back of his lines.   

 

The rest of the force advanced through the center, to claim both the large objective as well as completing the first step of my Scouting Force battle tactic, where I need three units out of my friendly territory.

 

The enemy however responded to this, and started to advance both over my flank and my center.

 

The Morsarr redeployed, to make the charge range for the Knights over 9" in the hopes they will fail this above average roll to reach me. 

 

However, he rolled a 12 (disclaimer: he only once NOT roll 11 or 12 for his charges in this game), and a big melee erupted in the center, between the Slaves to Darkness hero, warriors, chosen ones and knights on the one hand, and my Akhelian King, Morsarr Guard, Allopex and Giant on the other side.  This didn't look all to good though for the Idoneth...

 

 But while the shark was killed by the Chosen Ones, the line managed to hold on... only to have "Paddy" the Stumblefoot Giant go crazy, stuffing a Chosen One in his bag, and smashing, kicking and headbutting enemies left and right.  Something the Aelves however failed to do so...

 

This resulted in an impressive 17-5 benefit for the Idoneth after the first battle round.

 

In order to try and swing the balance a bit, the Akhelian Thrallmaster and the Thralls moved in to join the fight.

 

As they also entered the melee, hopefully their numbers could tip over the balance and together with the gaint destroy the final Chosen Ones and the knights. 

 

However, the Slaves to Darkness really spiked at this moment.  The warriors slaughtered ALL the Thralls and the Taskmaster due to the ability with the Lord, while even though the Giant put one Chosen in his bag again, both the last Chosen and the Knights spiked on their defence and saved each and every wound inflicted.  This was going to cost me the game, as instead of removing one, probably two units from his side, the freaky dice instead deleted two of mine, which also gave him two treasure tokens for additional VP's.

 

 In his turn, the Giant was finally taken down, soon followed by the last of the Morsarr and my King, as I failed about every saving throw I needed to take.  The battle was as good as over, though I still had a small chance.

 

In the back, Cyreni's Razors kept tagging objectives, and I still managed to be in front 27-17 after this round.  If I could play hide-and-seek for three more turns, I might draw out a small victory, but it would become a close affair.

 

Using both my Steed of Tides and my Tides switching, the Razors kept dancing around the field, trying to escape from the mighty Chaos forces while "lighting up" objectives where able. After round three though, I still was in the lead with 37-27.

 

But the Chaos forces started to disperse and claim more and more of them, so they will be forcing my hand in the final turn for certain, but as the chessgame continued during the fourth round, the Razors managed to still keep it at 45-42, it would be close.

 

Well, so close that I actually needed to charge his last knight in the final round, and I failed to roll a 9... coming out with an 8... TWICE!  Oh bugger, this will cost me the game now as I can't prevent him from scoring more then 8 in the last round.  Had I succeeded in the charge, I could have stolen a few points, and had I remained alive it would have come down to some moves on his part for a very close game, which would probably end with 2 or 3 points in one side or the others favour. However, now the Chosen, who had rallied almost back to full strength, charged in and decimated the Razors on the final moments, grabbing their token and scoring a round of 20, resulting in a 45-62 win for the Chaos force.

 

So this was tense, and I still am in doubt wether I would have needed to move as far forward for that high scoring turn 1 that put me far in the lead until the very last turn, or hold back a bit.  Either decision in my case could have worked out, but what did me in was the "double spike" both offensively and defensively for the Chaos troops in turn 2, which literally broke the back of my full army.  

 

But, fun first game for sure, and now to get some archers painted up for more flank pickings, and reinforce the Thrall unit. 

 

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

 So the First Family FINALLY arrives in the MCU, meaning we only are missing the most anticipated team in there... please bring that Doomsday movie forward.

 

Now, this movie didn't do that well at all in the box office, and basically I don't get it, this one was, compared to all previous iterations, actually good.

 

First off, I love the 60s vibe both the technology (The Eclipse, their car,...) gives off, as well as that 60s style theme music.  But what about the casting and the story?  Well, they face Galactus and the Silver Surfer again, like in the older movies with Jessica Alba.  The first thing Noshi noted was that they made the Silver Surfer female, and I had to bring her in the know.  There are more Surfers, some female, but we all are used to Norin Rad, the one we know from most comics.

 

Also a bit of comic knowledge, neutral viewers had on the one hand issues with the "superbaby", and with Reed being significantly older.  Well, Franklin IS the single most powerful mutant in the whole Marvelverse, basically they haven't seen anything yet.  And Reed never was a young scientist actually, being the senior of Susan, who is actually casted on the rather young side in all movies.

 

But that aside, the story is the traditional: Galactus is on course to Earth, and want to destroy it.  The Fantastic Four set out to talk to him, and he notices the unborn baby as his salvation, as it carries the Power Cosmic.  They try to stop him but fail, with Franklin being born in the process.  A plan is hatched to teleport Earth, but is stopped by the Silver Surfer, so using the final space bridge they plan on teleporting Galactus far away.  They nearly succeed, but as he goes after Franklin Sue holds him back, and the Silver Surfer in the end saves Earth to atone for her sins by pushing Galactus in the portal.

 

Now, and then there is the end-scene... a green hooded man holding a metal mask has appeared in the Baxter building, and we all know who that is, as Doctor Victor Von Doom will appear as the main villain in Doomsday.  

 

As will "that team" I talked about in the opening line... and I for one cannot wait this time for an actual Marvel release, and I can say that has been a LONG time. 

Halo season 2

 Viewed more or less back-to-back with the first season, which i saw at the end of 2025, it's time to dive into some more sci-fi action.

 

And that is the second season of Halo, based on the videogame franchise of the same name.

 

This is also the first of a new format I will be doing for series, anime's and movies.  Instead of putting down long synopsises, I'm going to take the route of the more opinionated views on a series...

 

The second season starts with a short aftermath of the first season's finale, and how Master Chief and Cortana are seperated again after he allowed her to take over his body.  A timegap is then spanned, and we find the Spartan's in action on a planet about to be glassed by the Covenant, and John discovering that it was a training ground before the planet is spectacularly glassed, awesome visuals there for certain.

 

Meeting with Halsey's replacement, he is made the fool, even though he believes Covenant forces, let by Makee whom he thought dead, are coming for Reach.  He looks for the Marine, Perez, that didn't back his story up after saving her, and then the big battle begins.  The aliens where indeed already on Reach, and now the glassing of the planet has begun.  Of course, the higher ups make away, and during some intense fighting episodes to try and save as many as possible, Silver Team is decimated: Vannak is killed, Riz get seriously injured resulting in her quitting the job, and Kai is missing.

 

For there onwards, we have three main storylines: Master Chief hunting for Makee and the Halo while out for revenge, the UNSC planning all kinds of weird stuff with a new generation of Spartans trained by the reappeared Kai, and Soren and his motley bunch looking for their son while discovering all kinds of things in the underbelly of the military.  As both Master Chief and Makee find their keystones, they face off in a spiritual way and their opposing beliefs.  On Onyx, Halsey, Kwan and Miranda discover a laboratory of the Forerunners, who created the keystones, as Ackerson realises he has been played by the government and the goal was to create a planet destroying weapon.  So politics within politics are playing up now and allegiances start to shift.

 

And then a spore is released, causing people to mutate and grow parasites that turn them incredibly violent, and this makes some more of them fall to the virus and each other including Soren's wife Laera, and Halsey who is put in cryosleep by her daughter to save her later.  They are called the Flood as a shaman reveals to Kwan in a vision, as Makee and Master Chief enter a Forerunner building... and the season ends.

 

And with that cliffhanger, so does the series actually, as it wasn't renewed for a third season by Netflix.  Because Netflix being Netflix I guess, even with high appreciation levels on various metacritic websites, though it's producing studio is still looking for a new home for the third season to be made.  I do hope they find one, as there are a LOT of open ends still around, if not to say that not a single arc has actually been resolved at all this season...

 

But it is definitly worth watching, the visuals are stunning, the action is top notch, and the glassing of Sanctuary or the defence of Reach are sci-fi moments that you will definitly see back in YouTube clips and all over the coming years for being really epic cinematic moments...

 

So let's keep our fingers crossed that third season will eventually materialize! 

Doctor Who season 15

 The second, and already last, season of the Doctor under the Disney umbrella (hoozah), starring Ncuti Gatwa as the doctor.

 

And while a short season numbering 8 episodes, let's go and watch this classic franchise! 

 

It kicks of after the christmas special from 2024, Joy to the World, when a nurse, Belinda Chandra, is kidnapped from her home by robots and brought back to a planet carrying her name.  Here they have enslaved the human population, as it turns out it is ruled by her ex-boyfriend who got there due to a fracture in time.  The Doctor saves her, but the TARDIS is unable to land on her moment of departure in 2025, so they have to take a detour.  They land in Miami in 1952, investigating the disappearance of 15 people in a cinema, who where taken by the God of Light.  

 

After overcoming Lux, they arrive on a planet in the far future, investigating a mining colony that went silent due to a monster hiding in the shadows of people.  The Doctor realises this is the planet formerly known as Midnight, and he encountered the entity before, but the strange thing is nobody ever heard of a planet called Earth.  We then meet up with Ruby again, who has a new boyfriend, Conrad.  However, he is out to expose the Doctor and aliens and all as fraudulent news, but after Conrad is put in prison Mrs Flood appears again and sets him free.

 

They travel to Lagos to boost the signal of their device to get back to Belinda's time, as well as going to the intergalactic Song contest, but they learn in the end that Earth ended on the day Belinda was taken.  Mrs Flood, somehow also present at the songfestival, bi-generates, revealing her to be none other then the Rani.  She sets out to start her plan of destroying Earth and creating an alternate future, all to bring back the Timelords and Gallifrey by releasing Omega, it's founder.  The Doctor manages to restore reality by triggering his regeneration deliberatly, but at the cost that he will regenerate, and now looking as his former companion Rose Tyler...

 

But how that pans out, we will have to wait a while, as the whole BBC / Disney deal unravelled and it will take about 2 years apparently before a new season will be released... luckily, time is a timey-wimey ball... 

Fantasy Anime League Fall 2025: the results

 So another season of predicting which anime will perform well has gone by, but how did we do after the solid performance of the Summer season?

 

Well, let's have a look at the week by week steps and how the series I picked performed.

 

From my starting five, My Hero Academia performed by far the best, ending 1st by a wide margin in the overal season ranking.  For the rest, the results can all be seen below:

 

My Hero Academia: 1st place, almost thrice the points of the second place contender...

Tomodachi: Bit of a let down, coming in only at spot 23

Saigo ni Hitotsu: A solid 2nd place, this yielded a good points haul as well

Watashi wo Tabetai: Solid midfielder whom brought home an 11th spot

Ranma 1/2: Swapped out in the final week, the series ended in the 6th place

 

And my initial bench pickings came in with the following results, in a course to end within the top XX % of this edition:

 

Gintanama: a good on and off anime for this season, which ended 12th during the whole run

My Status as an Assassin: Swapped in pretty early once it aired, it ended 4th, only dropping out of the top 3 in the final week

Disney Twisted Wonderland: Never having to use this, it also stranded on a lowly 40th place due to it's late airing time within the season

 

 On a weekly performance, my trajectory this FAL edition went as followed though

 

Week 1: 115054 pts, 395 th place, succesfully aced My Hero Academia

Week 2: 299396 pts, 466 th place, succesfully aced Saigo ni Hitotsu

Week 3: 259616 pts, 255 th place, swapped Tomodachi for Gintanama, 

Week 4: 743041 pts, 226 th place, swapped Watachi no Tabetai for Asassin, succesfully aced Assassin

Week 5: 882916 pts, 276 th place

Week 6: 995752 pts, 360 th place 

Week 7: 1291141 pts, 307 th place 

Week 8: 1465692 pts, 173 th place, succesfully aced Ranma

Week 9: 1725586 pts, 129 th place, swapped Gintanama for Tomodachi, succesfully aced Tomodachi

Week 10: 1993931 pts, 271 th place 

Week 11: 2106014 pts, 331 th place 

Week 12: 2386646 pts, 251 th place , swapped Tomodachi for Hitodenashi, succesfully aced Hitodenashi

Week 13: 2963150 pts, 244 th place,  swapped Ranma for Gintanama, succesfully aced Gintanama

 

So, we strand within the top 1% this run, quite a nice result, mainly achieved thanks to the swapping and acing game this quarter.  Something I did notice though against the regular trends, are that sequel series performed really well, not only My Hero Academia, which was a no-brainer to take.  Anime's like Kingdom or Uma Musume really scored high this quarter, while usually there is a drop-off in the sequels, and why I steered clear of them mostly.  

 

But, a solid perfomance, and while the next contest isn't for the winter season, we will definitly be back once a new FAL is announced! 

The Haul Report 428: a time to be merry

 Time for another Haul Report, and this time we are having a look at the gifts that where received over the holiday period.

 

Because the season of giving was upon us, and I managed to obtain some nice additions to the collections.

 

But let's start it off with a little christmas present to myself hehehe, because -20% is always a good thing...

 

It has been a very good gifting season though, starting out with the House of Repelsteeltje for my Efteling display, complete with lights and everything

 

The mancave will get some new decoration as well, as my "Displate cherry" has been popped, after all, every geek needs to have one of these in his personal space after all.

 

I also got some nice equipment for personal care, with the Lawnmower from Manscaped.

 

As well as the Raging Slayers deck I still lacked in my collection of Underworlds decks. 

 

A trip to the first edition Bobbejaanland Wintert brought back a pin of one of the most legendary attractions there, El Paso Special! 

 

And the family suprised me with some more Efteling sets for the collection, thanks everyone! 

 

So that was a lovely christmas period for sure, and my collections smile happily at the expansions, many thanks everyone! 

 

 

Star Trek Section 31

 Okay, so it took a while before I wrote this down, as my eyes needed to stop bleeding first...

 

Following the exploits of  Philippa Georgiou in Discovery, she received a spin-off series that then became a movie which in all honesty just ended as a huge trainwreck...

 

It begins in the Mirror Universe, where a young Georgiou passes the trials to become the new empress of the Terran Empire.  Jumping to our universe, agents of Section 31 are send to Baraam station, where Georgiou now rules after leaving the Discovery.  She is recruited into the team to track a weapons dealer.  When one of the team is killed, she recognises the weapon as the "Godsend", something she ordered to be developped in the Mirror Universe.

 

As she gets to know the team better, including the background that the leader Alok hails from the 20th century Eugenics Wars, they hunt the dealer Dada Noe and question him, learning he also comes from the Mirror Universe.  They learn the Godsend is to be used for the Terran Empire to invade and conquer the Prime universe.  It turns out one of their team is an infiltrator, and that San, a shadow from Georgiou's past in the Terran Empire, is the masked man that has been following them and causing obstructions to their mission.

 

During the confrontation, the Godsend is activated as Georgiou overcomes San, who dies in her arms, and the vessel containing the Godsend is send back through the wormhole into the Mirror Universe, ending the threat.  Weeks later the remaining survivors of the team are contacted for a new mission...

 

What a pile of rubbish, Suicide Squad style Star Trek just doesn't work, and the mystery surrounding Agent Sloan and his Section 31 pale to what they made of this.  Not to mention the age issue this movie creates for Rachel Garrett, the future captain of the Enterprise C, which would make her at the time of Yesterday's Enterprise almost 150 years old. 

 

For long, the fifth movie ever made, The Final Frontier, was known as the worst Star Trek movie in history, but it is by FAR redeemed with this one...