Why Do You Defend Trans People?

By

On 24th March 2021

In Blog

So I am gonna write a serious post here, not a long one but serious.

I was relentlessly bombarded a few months back by a friend of a friend who as it so happens, is a major TERF.

She was unhappy that I pointed out that JK Rowling is not a very nice person in regards to her attitude towards transgender women.

The tile of this post is a cleaned up version of the questions she initially put to me, trust me it was a very nasty way of saying it.

And one of her final tirades before I blocked her, was that the only reason I wasn’t transgender was because I would make a fuck ugly woman.

And let’s be clear here, I would absolutely be a fuck ugly woman, but still, that comment got right under my skin.

I spent a good couple of months questioning what it meant to be a man, if I even was a man. I hate that a TERF and a troll actually got under my skin like that.

Anyway, basically I came to the conclusion that I am a man, and to me being a man isn’t about how hairy my chest is, or how strong I am, how many birds I pull, how much I can bench etc.

But rather it was up to me to define how what being a man means to me. To me, being a man means sticking up for the under trodden, it means standing up to bullies, it means setting an example of how to be a good person for my nephews and nieces, and it means just enjoying my life and helping others to live their truth.

So why am I telling you this, well at the end of the day the whole argument came down to me, defending my trans friends, and I have, a rather large number of them.

I don’t care that they are trans, they tell me they were born in the wrong body, then fine, I will absolutely accept their true identify, refuse to deadname them and make sure I work my arse off the get their pronouns correct.

Trans people aren’t out to get special privileges, they aren’t trying to get into spaces reserved for the opposite gender, they just want to live their lives in peace and happiness.

Of all the trans people I know, most of them given the chance would have chosen not to be trans, to face the discrimination, abuse and bigotry is not something I think anyone would willingly choose.

No, they were born that way, and as a cisgendered person, it’s my responsibility to be welcoming to accept them and to be ready to stand up and defend them when others won’t.

I am not writing this expecting any brownie points, I know I have my blind spots, especially with my non-binary friends. The concept of non-binary is something I have trouble understanding, but just because I do my get it, doesn’t make it any less real. And I will make sure I do my best to get the right pronouns and address them by their preferred forms of address.

This song by Sunday Comes Afterwards helps to summarise how I work to figure it out.

In the long run, I was very wrong about my ideas of gender as a young man, I thought the way to be a man was very different to how I feel now, I was so caught up in the idea that I had to be hyper masculine like my dad, that I forgot to access what I could bring to the table of manliness.

What I bring is less masculinity and more compassion and what would probably be described as girly feminine traits, and there is nowt wrong with that, because us men could use those things I think.

Takes all sorts of people to make this crazy world we live in, and when it comes to gender, I realise from my own questioning, that it’s not exactly a binary thing, and sometimes, you aren’t put in the right end of the spectrum.

So guys, when someone asks me again, why do you white knight for trans folk, I do so because it’s the right thing to do, and I would do the same for any of my friends.

And really, don’t we just want people to be happy in themselves, and trust me, even with all the negatives (mostly caused by bigoted cis folk), trans people are happier when they are allowed to be who they are supposed to be.

And let’s face it, if the ayatollahs of Iran can recognise the validity of transgender people, then I think the rest of us can as well.

The Deacon of Wounds

By

On 23rd March 2021

In Book Reviews

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Warhammer Horror book The Deacon of Wounds by David Annadale published by Black Library, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first, I am also friends with David on Facebook, but I suspect that’s more about him connecting with fans rather than being a big fan of mine!

I am going to try my best to not let that cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

What is Warhammer Horror

Warhameer Horror is a new imprint from the publishers of Warhammer fiction, Black Library, which allows authors to publish the more horrific stories set in the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000 settings. And lets face it these universes are pretty grimdark and teeming with horror and all sorts of nasty and gribbly things.

The Story

This story is set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and is about the world of Theotokos, which is a dying planet, ravaged by drought and now faces a terrible plague, called the Grey Tears.

The only man who seems capable of saving this planet is the Arch-Deacon Ambrose, a charasmatic priest of the Adeptus Ministorium who genuinely cares for his world and wants to make the lives of its people better, unlike the worlds ruling Cardinal Lopez who only cares for personal enrichment.

But when Lopez suddenly dies, Ambrose is thrust into the role of leading the planet, but the choices he makes leads him down a dark path.

Lets start out by saying that this story requires you to have a good gag reflex, as there is a lot of nasty and disgusting body horror, it is after all about a plague. And coming out now in the middle of a global pandemic, you do recognise the panic and fear in the cities inhabitants.

And we get a good look at the Ecclesiarchy, which we really haven’t had like this in quite some time, as a big fan of the Sisters of Battle, I feel like I now have a better idea of how the priest that accompany them work.

Conclusion

This book really tells the story of the rise of Ambrose to the highest office on the planet, and his, and subsequently planets fall from grace. Despite being a relatively short story, is one that is very well handled and works well with Davids writing style.

Ambrose journey from a caring and approachable person to someone so very different, happens in a relatively short period, but it happens in such an incremental way that it feels so very natural.

But I am gonna be honest here, the book has an issue that another reviewer on Goodreads, Jenn, summed up very nicely, we have little grasp of the characters other than Ambrose. We seem to have some amazing supporting characters, but none of them are developed well at all. I think if you added another couple of chapters, it would have elevated the book up quite a bit.

A bit of development of the romantic subplot would have gone a long way, the lass he loves simply can’t be that oblivious to his amorous feelings. and as Jenn said, given is importance to the motivations of Ambrose it felt poorly executed.

The horror is disgusting and very revolting, and at points made me physically gag when reading the book, and the conclusion whilst slightly obvious was handled very well, and still was shocking in the way it happened.

Rating this book is difficult for me, I want to give it a 4, but I am varying between 3.5 and 4.5 because I am just unsure how to rate it given the shortcomings.

Its not a bad book at all though and was very enjoyable, its skin-crawlingly good and I think its biggest weakness is just its slightly too short and compromises were made.

So with that in mind, I recommend this book, its deep on lore and an insight to the workings and politics of the Ecclesiarchy as well as a creepy and horrific tale of a planets doom.

The Deacon of Wounds is out now as a hardback, eBook, MP3 audiobook.

Not A Great Weekend

By

On 22nd March 2021

In Blog

I am a day late with this blog update, I will be honest my weekend didn’t go the way I planned it at all.

I had to go out on Saturday and stuff just was crazy all round, and honestly I am exhausted and very tired.

My body is still giving me issues, the whole being unable to climb stairs properly is really getting to me.

I am gonna maybe start having a mid week post, but I am going to experiment with that this week.

Hopefully this week will be a touch better.

What I Am Modelling

I started the week by doing a big bunch of priming and airbrushing, which lead. To actually painting the entirety of my Scourge for Dropfleet Commander!

This also meant I got the Timeworn Ruins from Mortal Realms painted, two sets in fact, one from my Subscription and one from Forbidden Planet.

I then turned my attention to a squad of 10 Necron Warriors and their accompanying Scarabs.

I also worked on some Munitorium Armoured Containers for my Zone Mortalis board, these were painted with Death Guard Green as the base colour and then made to look nasty and a bit rusty.

I then started putting my last T’au Empire model for a little while on the table, a KV128 Stormsurge which is armed with a Pulse Blastcannon.

I am now working on the Mortar Team and the LeiG for the German Heer, and the Sagittarum Guard for the Custodes.

So what’s coming up for me this next week in terms of painting projects?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. German Heer 81mm Medium Mortar Team & 7.5cm LeiG Light Artillery
  3. Custodes Sagittarum Guard x 5
  4. German Heer Infantry Squad x 10 & Sniper Team
  5. Necron Royal Warden x 2 & Overlord x 2
  6. Adeptus Mechanicus Onagar Dunewalker
  7. Custodes Shield Captain x 2, Ixion Hale, Trajaan Valiris, Valerian & Aleya
  8. Flesh-Eater Courts Abhorrent Archregent
  9. Heralds of Nurgle x 3 & Horticulous Slimux
  10. German Heer Infantry Squad x 10, Liueteneant & Riflemen x 2

What I Am Reading

I finished First Team by Robbie MacNiven, and you can read my review here.

I also devoured the Litany of Dreams by Ari Marmell and the review for that is here.

I then read Deacon of Wounds, which is my first official review for Black Library!

My review for that will be published tomorrow!

What I Am Playing

Just a bit of Star Wars Squadrons during the week and a couple of hours on Sunday.

What I Am Backing

The Dungeon Masters Little Black Book successfully funded and I am really looking forward to this!

I have also decided to back Gloomier: A Night At Hemlock Hall because I absolutely love Gloom, I just gotta talk to the girls about what level we should stick at!

What I Am Cooking

Sadly nowt this week 🙁

Litany of Dreams

By

On 16th March 2021

In Book Reviews

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Arkham Horror book Litany of Dreams by Ari Marmell, published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.

I am going to try my best to not let that cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

What is Arkham Horror

Anyway that put to one side, let’s look at this book, by first looking at the game Arkham Horror which is a cooperative game, originally designed by Richard Launius, and is now in its third edition which was released in 2019.

It’s published by Fantasy Flight Games, a subsidiary of Asmodee, and is set in 1926 in the town of Arkham, Massachusetts. Each player takes on the role of an investigator, who are working to stop the Ancient Ones, eldritch horrors which lurk in the void beyond space and time.

It’s a 1-6 player game and you work together to gather clues and defeat the evil of the Ancient Ones and save the world.

As I said I haven’t actually played Arkham Horror but I do own its spin off Elder Sign the cooperative dice game.

The Story

Like the rest of the Arkham Horror novels, its set in the 1920s and in this case revolves around the disappearance of a gifted young student at Miskatonic University as his roommate searches high and low in his friends research for clues to his disappearance, and at the same time struggles against a litany that’s ceaseless in his mind and threatening to drive him into insanity.

The search takes on a new twist when an Inuit search for a stolen relic of his people crosses paths with him, and they find themselves joining forces to get to the bottom of the mystery and unearth a terrifying and ancient horror.

We get to delve a bit deeper into the lore of the Cthulhu mythos in this book than any of the others so far, and we have a very well rounded plot with characters with various motivations joining forces to prevent an apocalyptic event overtaking the world.

Mostly focusing on Elliot and Billy, the story is almost a mismatched buddy novel, crossed with mild horror and a bit of pulp detective thrown in for good measure.

Conclusion

The book was a very enjoyable read and a real page turner, the two main protagonists were very well developed and had just enough of a backstory to keep you interested, but without delving into too much. The motivation of Elliot, felt a little obvious, but when revealed is still highly dramatic and heartbreaking.

Billy seemed a little, well not obvious as to his background, its talked about a lot, the racism he experiences is subtle and all the more awful for that, but his background didn’t come through enough for me, I would have liked to have had this explored a bit more, but he was a very cool character.

Now I do have a negative thing to say, and that is that the female characters felt a tad underserved, we have two, strong and dynamic women in this book, and I felt that none of them got the service they deserved.

The main female character ups and leaves the group in the last quarter of the book and isn’t heard from again, so we have no idea how the events impacted her, or how she dealt with what happened. She didn’t even get in the epilogue and for me that wasn’t good at all.

The other main female character meets a tragic end, and it makes sense for her, what happens to her in the story makes what happens to her in the end seem logical, but with the dropping of the other character from the plot, I dunno, it just didn’t feel the same after I put the book down.

But regardless of this annoyance for me, the book was highly enjoyable and one I read in what felt like record time. The horror is initially slow and building, until the middle of the book when it becomes very real, some of it being almost post-apocalyptic in nature, and some feeling all too close to how things are in the world right now.

Would I recommend this book, yes, absolutely, its a solid 4.5 out of 5 for me, and to be honest had the epilogue resolved that one characters story arc, it would have been a 5.

The eBook is released on the 13th April and the paperback hits the shelves on 24th June.

First Team

By

On 15th March 2021

In Book Reviews

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Xavier’s Institute book First Team by Robbie MacNiven, published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.

Secondly I am a friend of Robbie on Facebook, and whilst we aren’t best buds, we do interact with each other on occasion and I consider him a class person.

I am going to try my best to not let these things cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

What is Marvel

Look at this point I would bore you with a bit of background to the game/universe, but lets not, you all know the Marvel Universe, if you don’t have you been living under a rock!

The Xavier’s Institute novel series is focued on the heroes that attend this school and their adventures and the two books in the series thus far (disclaimer I never actually read the first one yet) have focuses on what would very much be considered b-list heroes, which is good because it allows the authors to do a lot more with the characters than they would be able to do with more established heroes.

The Story

This is not an origin story, but you aren’t gonna need to know the background, you do get a decent explanation of the characters. Speaking of which the main character is Victor Borkowski, aka Anole, a lizard type mutant who had a really good upbringing compared to other mutants, and this story sees his dad kidnaped by anti-mutant extremists known as the Purifiers.

Pretty much this whole book is about the b-list X-Men with a little bit of Cyclops and a cameo by Kitty Pryde (The best of all X-Men and I will die on that hill), with Greymalkin, Cipher and Rockside forming the titular First Team. All of these are fan favourites but haven’t really had the exposure to the wider public before.

The story is one about family, a theme familar to those who are X-Men fans, family that is biological, adopted, genetic and forged of friendship. Mutants have often been shown to be more likely to suffer abandonment, being made orphaned or just plain abused, and this really delves into that in the unusualness of Anole having had a normal loving upbringing in an acepting community, despite being both a mutant and gay.

The family bonds we have are so often more than simple blood, they are forged in love and friendship, and this book really gets to the core of that, family is more than blood, and looks at what we would give up when our families are under threat.

Conclusion

This book is a real page turner and is to me seemingly a story in four parts almost, don’t know if that’s important but it felt like the book had four acts almost in which the feeling of the book changed quite a bit, which worked for me.

The featured X-Men are well rounded, you get a good feeling for who they are and what their motivations are, except perhaps Cipher, but I think that is intentional as she is a rather caged and guarded character.

Anole is a fan favourite and for good reason, we know that he was originally intended to commit suicide in the comics whilst struggling to come to terms with his sexuality, but just like the comics quickly realised that this would be a crass and awful thing to do, Anole here is at peace with his secuality and very happy with that part of himself, which was very warming to read.

I also liked that fact that although there were two gay blokes in this story, there was no automatic coupling, they were friends and often in comics and books, where there are two gay characters, they are often forced into a relationship by the writer, but here is a rare example of two gay men, who just enjoy each others company in a non-romantic way, and that to me makes their bond all that much stronger.

The theme of family, is infused into this book so naturally and so well, that it really makes you realise exactly how talented a writer Robbie is, it would be so easy to shove it in your face point to it and make it so obvious that its painful. But instead he has written a book that does this in a subtle way that you don’t realise how much focus the book places on the concept until you get to the epilogue, in that respect its a very well crafted book.

But thats not to say its a perfect book, and my biggest critisism is the villans, although we get some chapters from thier point of view, they feel very one dimensional, they are there, there is no background, they just exist as an obsticle with no real motivation other than hate and greed.

The big bad of the book, is sort of implied to be a mutant, but this is then forgotten about and we don’t actually have an explantaion about him. I know who he is and what his background is, but its not very well explained or expanded upon, which is a shame as the concept of him is, interesting in the comics.

To be frank, he could have been any generic bad guy and it wouldn’t have made a difference to the story which is what annoyed me about this, I feel in that respect Robbie did the character a disservice.

Same with the Purifiers, an existing organisation in the 616 continuity that honestly could have been any generic anti-mutant religious group.

All I am saying is that I think that original creations would have been better, because it really felt like the baddies were sort of not really well served in the story, and that’s not a bad thing, because the focus is and should have been the protagonists.

So in conclusion I am giving this a solid 4 out of 5

The eBook is out now and the paperback hits the shelves on 27th May.

I Am Not A House Painter

By

On 14th March 2021

In Blog

Lindsay was off so there was a fair bit of just hanging out, but one of the things she wanted to achieve this week was to paint a couple of walls in the kitchen, which she and Megan did on Thurdsay.

And it looks really nice, and we moved the bins to beside the door and the coffee station to where the bins were.

I am not very good at painting walls, so I supported by making cups of tea and cooking our tea for the night.

On Saturday we did a little tour of County Durham as we delivered things to friends, stuff that we still had a hold of for them, books, models etc. And we were able to swing by Megan’s mum on the way and pick up a clock from her, which formally lived at her nannies until she recently went to live in a retirement home.

So Saturday evening, me and Megan hung it on the newly painted wall in the kitchen, althouh we do now need to touch the wall up a little as it was scratched in a couple of spots when mounting it.

But overall the kitchen looks really nice now.

We also dropped two podcast episodes this week, the first is a Hobby Studio in which we talk The Walking Dead: All Out War, Star Wars: Legion and building a list for Age of Sigmar.

And Edge of Empire episode 3 of year 5 dropped as well!

What I Am Modelling

First thing I did was to finish off some Sentinel Guard for both 40K and Heresy, which were actually a lot of fun to paint.

I then moved on to a trio of Riptides, these have been intimidating me a bit but I focused on getting the main armour colour on, then working on them one by one.

The first one was finished on Wednesday, and is the oldest one I own, and I am so glad it’s fully painted now.

I finished the second one on Thursday night whilst on stream.

And the third and final one was finished on Friday.

This allowed me to move on a Sanguinary Priest and Primaris Apothecary for the Blood Angels.

So what’s on my painting queue going into next week then?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. T’au KV128 Stormsurge
  3. German 81mm Medium Mortar Team & 7.5cm LeiG 18 Light Artillary
  4. Necron Warriors x 10 & Scarabs x 3
  5. Custodes Sagittarum Guard x 5
  6. Scourge Cruisers x 8 & Battlecrusiers x 2
  7. German Heer Infantry Squad x 10 & Sniper Team
  8. Necron Royal Warden x 2 & Overlord x 2
  9. Onager Dunecrawler
  10. Custodes Shield Captains x 2, Ixion Hale, Trajaan Valiris, Valarian & Aleya

What I Am Reading

I am reading First Team by Robbie MacNiven and that should be finished by tonight

What I Am Playing

No tabletop games, but I did play a couple of hours of Star Wars: Squadrons today which I was awful at!

Planning the Assassins Creed playthrough, which is gonna start in April, and now I own all of the games on the Xbox and they are ready to play after I picked up the Ultimate Edition of Assassins Creed Valhalla in a sale.

What I Am Backing

I have backed the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book, which looks like it might be a very nice addition to the DMs toolbox, and at £2 for a PDF isn’t bad at all.

I really want to back Stellaris, but the VAT and Customs Duties are going to be too high, so sadly I have to say no, thanks Brexit!!!

I am pretty sure as a household we are going to back Gloomier, we are big fans of Gloom, so this looks pretty good to us.

What I Am Cooking

On Monday I made my Italian Winter Soup for tea, which is really nice, filled with vegetables, lentils and orzo.

On Tuesday I cooked again and I made Slow Cooked Chinese Style Beef. I love Chinese flavours and we don’t really eat them much in our house, but I am trying to change that a little bit.

This was base on a BBC recipe but we added more veg, specifically some carrots and Savoy cabbage.

And on Thursday whilst the girls decorated, I made tea again, this time a slow cooked Sriracha Chilli Chicken.

And this morning I made some quiches for breakfast, they were very nice, but Lindsay was not that big a fan!

Bit of an Upgrade

By

On 7th March 2021

In Blog

So the PC has had a bit of an upgrade, I basically had to buy a new case to accommodate the AIO.

The new case is a Corsair 4000X, and this is the first time I have had a higher end case since the early 2000s every case since then has cost not a lot and usually come with a PSU!

Anyway, the new case arrived, along with a cheeky CPU upgrade to a 5600X.

Myself and Megan decided to accelerate the program by which she ends up with a new PC, and I managed to score a decent second hand motherboard for her, so now all she needs is memory, a PSU, monitor and keyboard.

Hopefully in the next couple of months we can sort that out for her.

Anyway so I transplanted the computer into the new case, I took out the three included SP120 fans and replaced them with my ML120 fans, relocated one of the SP120s to the rear of the PC and reserved the remaining two SP120s for Megan’s future PC.

The motherboard then slipped in along with the new CPU and I fitted the AIO, then in went the memory, GPU and Capture Card, plus an internal USB hub I picked up as well.

Alas it did not go all that smoothly, although I was diligent and kept my BIOS up to date with the latest firmware, to get it to accept a Ryzen 5000 was to put back in the 3400G and run a special firmware update because when updating from a Picasso CPU to the latest firmware using instant flash, it doesn’t add in the instructions to run Vermeer CPUs, which is annoying.

But oh no a single update wasn’t enough, it required a further two firmware updates in a precise order for it to be able to boot into Windows!

I also decided to give it a clean install of Windows whilst I was at it, but it’s all up and running now, more effective than ever!

My mouse that I had ordered last year, and has been on back order finally came along with its mouse mat.

It’s a Corsair Dark Core Pro RGB and a Polaris with hard surface, I guess you could say I am a Corsair fanboy.

Achievement Unlocked:- Vaccinated!!!

I got my first dose of the Covid vaccine last night. I went to the Centre of Life mass vaccination centre with Lindsay, where we bumped into her sister Jane.

I got the Astra-Zeneca vaccine and oh wow the side effects are nasty, headache, sore neck and feeling very groggy.

But it’s gonna be worth it in the end, and I urge everyone to get it when they are offered it.

What I Am Modelling

The beginning of the week was a bit off, without my PC I felt very lost and kinda unable to really paint.

But in Wednesday I did finish off the Bloodmaster and Skulltaker for my Blades of Khorne.

I then moved onto a pair of Ghostkeels for my T’au, which I had been kind of avoiding, but I decided to crack on and get them done.

So what’s on my list going forward then?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. T’au XV104 Riptide x 3
  3. Sentinel Guard x 5
  4. Blood Angels Primaris Apothecary & Sanguinary Priest
  5. T’au KV128 Stormsurge
  6. German 81mm Medium Mortar Team & 7.5cm LeiG 18 Light Artillery
  7. Necron Warriors x 10 & Scarabs x 3
  8. Sagittarum Guard x 5
  9. Scourge Cruisers x 8 & Battlecruisers x 2
  10. German Heer Infantry Squad x 10 & Sniper Team

What I Am Reading

I started on Fury of Magnus by Graham McNeil and got it finished, and wow, what a novella.

Really tied up some loose ends and brought Magnus to where he ends up at the end of the siege quite nicely. Ironic that he places himself firmly on the side of Chaos, by doing what is fundamentally the right thing.

I then started on First Team by Robbie MacNivan, just got the first chapter done, gonna have a read tonight.

What I Am Playing

Sadly I got nowt played this week 🙁

What I Am Backing

Alhambra Roll & Write arrived, although via Hermes which made us nervous!

What I Am Cooking

On Friday myself and Megan made Smokey Chipotle Chicken Wings with Colcannon Baked Potatoes and Coleslaw which was rather nice.

Resolutions Update – February 2021

By

On 3rd March 2021

In Blog

I’d like to think this month has gone pretty well and to date I have painted 213 models.

I also got a new Lightbox which is really making a difference in my photos!

But how am I doing with the resolutions

Paint 2000 points of Necrons for Warhammer 40,000 – 17.5% Complete

For the Necrons this month I added a second unit of warriors, which doubles what I have done so far.

I have also built the next few batches of Necron models, the two Overlords, two Royal Wardens, Technomancer, Plasmancer, Crytothralls, Warriors and Scarabs.

Paint 1000 points of Early War Germans for Bolt Action – 12.3% Complete

I painted the first Heer Infantry squad, and I am extremely happy with how these turned out.

I also now have built the next few things to be painted, the Infantry Support Gun, Mortar Team, Sniper Team, Lieutenant and Riflemen and two Infantry Squads.

Paint The Scourge for Dropfleet Commander – 25%

I have completed the painting of the Starter Fleet.

This leaves me with the following to paint.

  • Frigates 16
  • Cruisers 8
  • Battlecruisers 2

I may still add to the fleet, I am keen to grab myself some Destroyers and Monitors and probably a Battleship.

These models have now all been built and await being painted.

Other Resolutions

On the other resolutions, well not much progress so far, but I have added the next lot of models for the Flesh Eater Courts, and I just need a few more to get me to what I want.

  • Paint 2000 Points of Flesh Eater Courts for Warhammer Age of Sigmar
  • Paint Blackstone Fortress and it’s Expansions
  • Bring my Mechanicum to 3000 points for Horus Heresy, including the Warhound Titan

So as we head into March, what’s on the painting queue?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrian
  2. T’au XV95 Ghostkeel x 2
  3. Blades of Khorne Skulltaker and Bloodmaster
  4. T’au XV104 Riptide x 3
  5. Custodes Sentinel Guard x 5
  6. Blood Angels Primaris Apothecary and Sanguinary Priest
  7. T’au KV128 Stormsurge
  8. German 81mm Medium Mortar Team & 7.5cm LeiG 18 Light Artillery
  9. Necron Warriors x 10 & Scarabs x 3
  10. Custodes Sagittarum Guard x 5

A Cooling Nightmare

By

On 1st March 2021

In Blog

I have decided to take the plunge and make a big update to the cooling for my PC.

The current cooling is fine, but the GameMax air cooler doesn’t give me room to fit anymore RAM because it overhangs the slot and I just want that but more control.

So I have invested in a Corsair H100i Elite Capellix AIO and a three pack of ML120 fans.

And reading that apparently I will need theee hubs to control these, I grabbed an internal USB hub, although I am not entirely sure how successful that will be if I am honest.

However, when it came to the install, it went very wrong!

When removing the CPU cooler, it pulled the CPU along with it, the fans have all been straightened and it’s seems fine, but well it’s a bit of a nightmare.

And of course the bloody AIO doesn’t fit in the case.

So me and Megan decided on a couple of things, we have bought a new case, a Corsair 4000X and decided to get my CPU checked out for damage, and in the meantime replace it with a 5600X.

It all arrives tomorrow, but it’s not the weekend I wanted to have.

What I Am Modeling

I started the week by putting on the desk, a German Heer Infantry Squad for Bolt Action.

These models I have had since they were released and I will be honest, they have been a little intimidating. I struggle with these guys being, well pretty much the ultimate bad guys.

I used Duncan’s late war painting guide as a basis and then deviated from there to make them more early war, and I am really happy with how they turned out, especially the bases.

I then jumped another thing up the list, this time it was the Necron Warriors and Scarabs, but these are extremely simple to paint.

I also worked on a Death Korps of Krieg Command Squad to try and get my scheme nailed down for them.

I think I am very happy with this, although I do worry that perhaps I let my work on the German Heer influence some of the elements of these, which is the opposite of what I wanted to do.

I may end up stripping and repainting these, I dunno.

Once these were done I then picked up Reikenor the Grimhailer and started to put paint on him, he is the first named character I have for my Nighthaunt and he is a very very detailed model.

I then went on a building splurge to get my next twenty planned project ready.

That took up most of Thursday and Friday, but my next twenty projects are built and awaiting being primed.

And then I moved onto a set of Sicaran Ruststalkers I got when the Skitarii were first released, so yeah they have been waiting to get painted for a while!

I then moved on to Skulltaker and a Bloodmaster for the Blades of Khorne.

What’s on the painting queue coming up then?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. T’au XV95 Ghostkeel x 2
  3. Blades of Khorne Skulltaker & Bloodmaster
  4. T’au XV104 Riptide x 3
  5. Sentinel Guard Squad x 5
  6. Blood Angels Primaris Apothecary & Sanguinary Priest
  7. T’au KV128 Stormsurge
  8. German 81mm Medium Mortar Team & 7.5cm LeiG 18 Light Artillery
  9. Necron Warriors x 10 & Scarabs x 3
  10. Sagittarum Guard x 5

What I Am Reading

I finished reading Rogue Untouched by Alisa Kwitney, which was really good and you can see my review here.

I have now started on Fury of Magnus by Graham McNeil.

What I Am Playing

As promised last week here is the video of our Star Wars: Squadrons stream.

On Saturday for Megan’s birthday, we played some games, starting with Camel Up, or is that Camel Cup!!!

Weirdly, I won, which was a nice change.

We then played Say Anything, which Megan won by 3 points, and I can’t wait to okay this again with a group of people.

What I Am Backing

I got my hands on the stuff from Remembrancers of the Australis Ultima Sector and I am really happy with these, just need to find a frame for the picture.

What I Am Cooking

For breakfast on Sunday I made Cheesy Grits with Smoked Sausage, it looks horrid, but tastes really nice.

Rogue Untouched

By

On 28th February 2021

In Book Reviews, Reviews

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Marvel Heroines book Rogue Untouched by Alisa Kwitney, published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.

I am going to try my best to not let that cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

Also I won’t lie, I have looked at other reviews to see what others think, so there may be some influences from them in this book review. If I am going to quote them, I will attribute them. But if I forget to, or something is highly influenced by them, and you think I ought to attribute someone, let me know so that I can.

What is Marvel

Look at this point I would bore you with a bit of background to the game/universe, but lets not, you all know the Marvel Universe, if you don’t have you been living under a rock!

The Marvel Heroines series focuses on the female hero’s of the Marvel universe, the first book in the series was Domino Strays, which I really enjoyed, so I was looking forward to this book.

The Story

This is an origin story for our favourite power absorbing mutant Anne Marie also known as Rogue, and this is firmly set in the Aconyte-618 Earth, so its been able to abandon many of the fine details about Rogues 616 backstory and reimagine it in a slightly more modern and interesting way.

The character of Rogue has been depicted very differently in the many media forms in which she has appeared outside the comics, with only the 90s Cartoon being close to it. In the movies, she was basically Kitty Pryde, but fit into that story they were making.

Here in this novel she is probably a mixture of the comics, cartoon and movies, to form a well developed character, who when we meet her, has no idea that she is even a mutant, and is subsisting as a waitress in a diner. That is until she encounters a handsome Cajun gambler, who brings her into a whole new world.

In this book, Rogue is a character who is unsure of herself, having put her high school boyfriend into a coma, she is just trying to get out of her small town so that she can go to university and study psychology. We get to see her interactions with her friend, neighbours, boss and overly religious aunt, which really does give us a great background for the character.

The story is told in a first person persepective and we really do get to know Rogue, better than I think we ever have before, especially in this early part of her life. We do see the internal trauma she has from the earliest manifestations of her powers, but I do feel like this is kinda put aside in place of more focus on the self-doubt, but another reviewer (Katie Clark) pointed out that having the trauma happen before the events of the novel, allowed us to see her become a more empowered woman, which I agree with.

Conclusion

This book is a very enjoyable read, although parts of the conclusion felt a little bit rushed, and I did like that as well as well known mutants like Pyro and Toad being featured, we also had lesser known ones like Zeitgeist and Nature Girl, and even some mutants who I am not at all familiar with, one of who I think was created for this story.

The Characters are super three-dimensional, there is no wasted characters here, and even those with bit parts feel a lot more fleshed out than I would have expected them to be.

Also the little reference to The 10th Kingdom, made me smile as I thought that was an awesome mini-series.

I think this book deserves a solid 4.5 stars out of 5, and I only knock it down a touch because the ending felt a little rushed and I think another chapter or two would have been appreciated.

There is also nice room in there for sequels, and I really hope that there are some.

The eBook is released on the 4th May and the paperback hits the shelves on 10th June.

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