The Last Ritual

By

On 21st November 2020

In Book Reviews, Reviews

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Arkham Horror book The Last Ritual by S. A Sidor, 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

It’s a 1920s novel as an aspiring artist in the town of Arkham as he tried to piece together the puzzle of several very odd occurrences along with his love interest a talented young writer.

Like the previous novel Wrath of N’kai, which I reviewed earlier this year, it has a very rich setting, and there are subtle crossovers as characters common to the setting get a mention.

But we run across bootleggers, odd job men, butlers, privileged rich kids and impoverished artists, as well as the main antagonist, a renowned Spanish surrealists who wishes to open the gate.

On Goodreads I saw an excellent comment by Taylor Hanson, this book is “Lovecraft meets The Great Gatsby”, and that is as good a term I can think of.

The story is told retrospectively as Alden, our protagonist recites the tale to a young reporter, so there is a lot of foreshadowing to a disaster that left him disfigured and scarred.

The book is much slower and quietier than Wrath oif N’kai, but its suitably unsettling, there is an almost blurring of the lines between the possible, and the impossible, between dreams and waking. The creeping dread of the story is very tangible and when finished with it after a session, I felt a discomfort in my mind.

Conclusion

Personally I really enjoyed the book, it was a creepy, yet enjoyable story which whilst grounded in the Cthulhu mythos, like the Wrath of N’kai did not delve into it too deeply, nor did it require me to have more than passing knowledge.

Normally, I don’t go for horror, and this one nicely doesn’t dwell too much on gore, but its absolutely there but mostly happens off screen.

The conclusion felt like it came too quickly, and I did find his efforts to find a missing person in the last couple of chapters, a little lacklustre considering what they meant to Alden.

I would recommend this book, its certainly an entertaining read and does get the heart pumping.

Reorganising the Desk

By

On 17th November 2020

In Blog

With the RGB lighting in my PC, we decided that we wanted it on the desk and put it in the centre.

But this has had the effect of very much restricting my arm movement on the desk and has given me a few anxiety attacks as my claustrophobia got triggered by it.

So we decided that the rig would move to the end of the desk next to the printer, the reason for this was to make my mind a lot calmer, and let Megan see the pretty lights.

To do this I was gonna need a bunch of USB cable extensions, but we decided in the end it would be easier and cheaper to just order a USB hub and place that under the desk, it also freed up a bunch of USB ports in the back of the PC for other stuff.

So on Wednesday I took delivery of some cables for the monitors and the USB hub, and I moved the tower.

The USB hubs cable didn’t work so I had to send that back and a replacement was ordered, but I have a temporary one I am using for now.

So I was able to get the HDMI Extractor, the Video Capture Card power cables moved from the desktop USB Hub to the one that currently under the desk, which means I have more poets available in there.

Got to say it looks a lot nicer now, the desk looks a lot less cramped and move comfortable and I feel like I have more room.

The first of two new monitors arrived, I had ordered two but one was damaged in transit, but a replacement will be sent as soon as it’s back in stock.

It’s a Viewsonic XG2405, which is idea, it’s a 24” 1080p monitor with 144hz refresh rate, AMD Freesync and 1ms response time, so perfect for gaming.

It’s has ironically made the HDMI extractor redundant as it has a built in headphone jack, so yeah I guess that’s a bummer, but I didn’t think I would get these so soon.

The biggest pain in the bum is that the speakers on it are so much weaker than those on the TV I was using, to the point of being practically unusable.

So an alternative pair were sourced from Argos, a pair of Creative Pebbles, but annoyingly although advertised as V2s they are actually the much weaker V1s, so they were promptly returned.

So it’s back to the drawing board for speakers and I think I will wait until I get paid next and get a better pair then.

I can listen to music on an old soundbar and game sounds through my headphones.

At the same time I installed a new power extension tower to replace the four extension leads I had daisy chained off one another and was branded by Lindsay as a massive fire risk!

I did also order a couple more cables, a pair of micro USB cables, one to stretch from the USB capture card to the under desk USB Hub and another to replace my desk cable that is in very bad shape.

A USB A to B cable was also ordered for my Dymo Label printer so it reaches the hub properly. These arrived ahead of schedule so I was able to get me fitted and fantastically my set up is so much neater and tidier now.

All in all the desk area is now a lot better and a lot more ergonomic, Megan gets a view of the pretty lightshow and it’s easier for us to both watch things on the screen whilst downstairs.

What I Am Modelling

I started the week by priming the rest of the stuff to have the next ten projects ready to start.

And then I picked up the tenth project on the list, the Aeronautica Imperials Lightning Fighters, and they didn’t take very long at all.

I was also able to finish off the second Sigmarite Mausoleum I got from Mortal Realms, this has been worked on little by little over the past couple of months.

This gives me a complete set of the current Sigmarite Mausoleum, and really helps to bulk out the city of Esasa.

I then continued with the Palanite Enforcers and Subjugators and got them finished up Thursday night.

I also started work on the Lord-Aquillor and Lord Exorcist whilst waiting for layers of Contrast paint to fully dry.

But the Endless Spells for the Stormcast Eternals were finished first.

Followed by the Gryph-Hounds, no Alpha in this lot because I did two Alphas in the first batch. And then I got the Lord-Exorcist completed the same evening.

On Monday I finished the Lord-Aquilor, which now leaves me with just six Stormcast Models to paint.

I am now in a building focused bent, with a plan to get the next 15 projects worth of stuff built and primed, it’s not actually that much work as most of it is already done.

Got 4 kits left to build and I plan to prime them on Wednesday daytime.

So what’s in the plan coming up:-

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Blood Ravens Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles & Inceptors x 3
  3. Death Korps of Krieg Grenadiers x 12
  4. The Grymwatch & Rippa’s Snarlfangs
  5. T’au KV128 Stormsurge
  6. Ork Megatrakk Scrapjet
  7. T’au Barracudas x 4 & Tiger Sharks x 2
  8. Nighthaunt Grimghast Reapers x 4, Glaivewraith Stalkers x 5, & Crawlocke the Jailor
  9. Death Korps of Krieg Death Riders x 10
  10. Nurgle Blood Bowl Team x 13

What I Am Reading

I started the week by listening to the Warhammer Adventures book, War of the Orks in audio format.

I know they are only kids books, but I am really getting into them!

I am now halfway through The Last Ritual, took me a little while to get into it, but it’s really good and very creepy.

What I Am Playing

I had a break from streaming most of this week, I need to regroup and figure out the strategy for doing it.

But we did have a game of Star Trek Adventures on Wednesday with the guys. And it was cracking good fun, we are playing again this week.

I have had a few games on Apex Legends, I just wanted to try out a Battle Royale game and Lindsay and Megan were negative about most of them as my Nephew plays them.

I have had four games so far and actually was on the winning team for the last one, although I have scored very few kills, because I really am pants at it!

What I Am Cooking

On Tuesday I made us Double Chicken Katsu Burgers, with Sesame Wedges, a Rice Vinegar Pickled Salad and Katsu Mayo on the side for dipping.

It was really nice, apart from the fact that Lindsay kept freaking out about the chicken. She has a real fear of eating undercooked chicken and she usually only ever eats chicken breast, but I used chicken thighs in these.

She kept almost throwing up when she was cutting into it, really knocked my confidence just as I am getting into the swing of cooking again.

I know she can’t help it, heavens knows she is super understanding if my autism making certain textures difficult for me to eat.

On Sunday me and Megan made Kansas City BBQ Chicken Wings, I marinated the chicken wings in my Kansas City BBQ sauce and Megan made a lovely bacon potato salad.

What I Am Spending

I have been asked to eliminate this section of the blog, there are reasons, but I think it’s best not to go into them at this time.

But regardless, I will be sharing what I have been spending much much less frequently and as said, this section is leaving the blog from this week.

The First Upgrade

By

On 9th November 2020

In Blog

My PC has had its first upgrade, a discrete graphics card, specifically the EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC Black Gaming.

I managed to get it for a bargain £217, it’s B-Stock with a few cosmetic blemishes but nowt that impacts what it does.

I had already set up the PCI-e 9 pin power cable on Sunday, so that was l ready to go.

I also took advantage of having the case open and optimised my cable management a bit more so it looked a bit better.

It was supposed to arrive on Wednesday but never actually arrived until Thursday annoyingly.

And weirdly, despite being a GTX card it says in the side that it’s an RTX card, but GPU-Z is clear, it is absolutely a GTX 1660 Ti, so I am guessing it’s been refurbished with the RTX heat sink, it is after all B-Stock.

The card just slotted in and is very short, but quite wide, taking up 3 slots, and has DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort sockets, I am going to be using the DisplayPort and HDMI sockets.

Once it was slotted in and attached to the case, I powered up the system and Windows installed drivers, but I downloaded the drivers direct from Nvidia to make sure I had the most up to date drivers possible.

In anticipation of its arrival I ran some benchmarks in Heaven using the APU on both High and Ultra settings and the results were ok for what it was as you can see below from the Ultra benchmarks.

But damn, when the GPU went it, oh boy did my performance shoot up, just compare those numbers. Bear in mind of course that right now I am running my system not even at 1080p.

So yeah, really pleased with this but I still need to power up some good games with it yet, might give Tomb Raider a go!

I have sold a few other bits and bobs this week and will hopefully be ordering a pair of monitors towards the end of the week.

Although stock levels mean that my first couple of choices are not gonna happen, but there is a very good third choice which is probably gonna happen.

I want an IPS panel monitor with at least 144mhz, but it’s got to be 24” to fit in the space and therefore is limited to 1080p.

I have seen a Viewsonic one, which fits the bill, I would prefer it if it had a built in USB, but alas it doesn’t.

What I Am Modelling

The week started with something secret so I can’t share photos of them until they are all done, but I am very happy with them!

Then I completed the Zone Mortalis Walls and Columns, was a long hard slog, but worth it in the end.

After they were done, I completed a squad of Death Korps of Krieg Engineers and their Hades Breaching Drill for Niki.

At this point I was going to be streaming, the Dreadscythe Harridans were up next but I wasn’t sure they would be all that engaging, so I jumped ahead and started in the Space Wolves Swiftclaws.

These got done fairly quickly as we recorded this months podcast and I think that’s all the outstanding Space Wolves I have to paint.

Then I picked up a few bits of scenery from Mortal Realms which were sitting under my desk, these were done to add to the city of Esasa.

After which I then turned my attention to the Dreadscythe Harridans, all 20 of them!

They weren’t as bad as I thought they would be and by Sunday they were all finished.

This allowed me to then turn my attention to some additions to my Necromunda stuff, specifically the Palanite Enforcers from Dark Uprising. That is 5 Engorcers and 5 Subjugators, plus a couple of Ambots.

On Monday I also did a little building to get me to the point where the next 10 projects were all ready just to paint. I plan on priming them tomorrow.

So what’s next for me then?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Palanite Subjugators x 6, Palanite Enforcers x 5
  3. Stormcast Eternals Lord-Aquilor, Lord-Exorcist and Gryph-Hounds x 6
  4. Blood Ravens Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles & Inceptors x 3
  5. Death Korps of Krieg Grenadiers x 12
  6. The Grymwatch & Rippa’s Snarlfangs
  7. T’au KV-128 Stormsurge
  8. Ork Megatrakk Scrapjet
  9. T’au Barracudas x 4, Tiger Sharks x 2
  10. Aeronautics Imperialis Lightnings x 3

What I Am Reading

Not much in the way of prose, but I did listen to a couple of audiobooks.

First was Sons of Behemat which was very good, really interesting to listen to.

And then I listened to Valdor: Birth of the Imperium and I am glad I did cause I spotted a few things I missed when reading it in prose.

What I Am Playing

Not much this week, The Witcher happened as normal, but I didn’t stream Bioshock as I had some recording to do for the podcast.

I also had a game of Carcassonne and Star Wars Squadron on Twitch, both of which were a lot of fun and were done to test out the NVENC Encoder on the graphics card.

What I Am Backing

Nowt, but the backerkit for Chai: High Tea was charged, we ended up grabbing a the acrylic tokens, bags and playing mat for it.

What I Am Cooking

Not much this week other than beans on toast a couple of times.

I did assist on helping make tea on Friday, when we made Indian Spiced Chicken Wings, served with green beans, naan breads and cous cous.

What I Am Spending

Not a lot this week, I bought some stickers for my PC case which arrived.

There is a reason for this, a bloke on a PC forum I lurk in started getting abuse from someone on eBay for putting a Windows 10 sticker on the PC he was selling. He had the fella quite upset and was threatening with the police arresting him for copyright violations.

Turns out the bully was selling similar systems but more expensive and was trying to terrify the competition.

I also bought my new monitors today, they are a pair of the Viewsonic XG2405 and will replace the 10 year old 720i TV I currently use and the 15 year old HP square monitor.

My requirements were for the monitors to be at least 1080p, have at least a 144Hz refresh rate, AMD Freesync and preferably an IPS panel, and if possible a USB hub.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, PC parts and components have been in short supply and prices have remained high, the monitor I did have in mind, an AOC one, has been out of stock most places for months and those places that do have it in stock have added an average of £50 to the price of it.

So I went with the Viewsonic one, I haven’t had a Viewsonic monitor since the 90s and that was an amazing monitor. This particular monitor uses the same IPS panel as the AOC one, the only thing it doesn’t have is a USB hub.

So yeah that should arrive next week, in the meantime I ordered the cables to hook it up, because I am moving the rig and need longer cables than I have at home, so a 3m DisplayPort and HDMI cable have been ordered, along with a USB hub to be used instead of a bunch of USB extension cables.

October Resolutions Update

By

On 6th November 2020

In Blog

I got a lot more painted this month than in the past few, I felt I got a good deal of my motivation back.

Sorry this update is late, but events have been hectic lately!

I crossed the 1000 mark for number of models painted, and at the end of October stood at 1104 models painted.

Finish The Blood Ravens I Own on 1st January – 95%

I got painted this month, both squads of Hellblasters, a squad of 10 standard guys and 5 with Heavy Plasma Incinerators.

This leaves me left to paint for this resolution:-

  • Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles x 10
  • Inceptors x 3

Paint 2000 Points of Stormcast Eternals – 85.5% Complete

I got the last squad of Vanguard-Hunters for the list painted, which completes the battle line for this list.

I now have left to paint:-

  • Lord Arquilor
  • Gryph-Hounds x 6

Paint 2000 Points of T’au – 65.2% Complete

I painted this month, a Strike Team, Stealth Team, Sniper Drone Team and the Commander in XV86 Armour.

Left to paint I have:-

  • Barracuda AX-5-2
  • KV128 Stormsurge

Complete 2000 Points of Orks – 15.25% Complete

This month I finally got started with this and I painted a squad of Ork Boyz and a Warboss plus a Mekboy Workshop for a kid battling cancer.

Other Resolutions

  • Rebase the Orks

Completed Resolutions

  • Paint 867 Models
  • Rebase the Blood Ravens
  • Finish the Death Guard
  • Paint Mortarion for Everchosen

So what’s on my painting list as we head into November

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Nighthaunt Dreadscythe Harridans x 20
  3. Space Wolves Swiftclaws x 3
  4. Palanite Enforcers x 5, Palanite Subjugators x 6 & Ambots x 2
  5. Stormcast Eternals Lord-Aquillor, Lord-Exorcist & Gryph-Hounds x 6
  6. Blood Ravens Stalker Intercessors x 10 & Inceptors x 3
  7. Death Korps of Krieg Grenadiers
  8. The Grymwatch & Rippa’s Snarlfangs
  9. T’au KV-128 Stormsurge
  10. Ork Megatrakk Scrapjet

Rewatching Deep Space Nine

By

On 3rd November 2020

In Blog

Deep Space Nine is by far my favourite Star Trek, and I have been waiting a while to rewatch it as Megan as been wanting to watch it and she and Lindsay were still making their way though The Next Generation.

But the other week they finally finished and we have now started Deep Space Nine, getting on average four episodes watched a week.

We just finished Vortex, I know the first season was a little uneven, but it’s very enjoyable none the less as you can see the beginnings of what eventually grows into what is in my opinion the deepest and richest of all of the Trek series.

By staying in one place, the show was able to actually really fully develop not only the core cast, but a greater number of supporting characters who contributed to the depth of the setting. I mean the journey of characters like Rom was so fantastic, and very rewarding.

Of course it really starts to kick off in season 3, and will take some time to get there, but it’s just a case of waiting for that!

We did get Move Along Home, which was a very bad episode, but still lots of classics to come.

Graphics Card Aquired

With the impending lockdown I threw caution to the wind and bought a graphics card.

Specifically I got a EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC Black Gaming. I managed to snag it for £217 which was pretty good considering it’s normally £269.99.

Ok to be fair it’s B-Stock, but I am not bothered with this card being pleasuring on the eye physically.

I was getting myself very tempted by an RTX 2060 but, looking at some bottleneck calculations I was gonna run into some issues with my current processor, hence scaling back on the card.

On Sunday my PC was doing a restart so I figured then was as good a time as any to install the PCI-e power cable to get it ready, so that was done, and now all I need to do is wait for the card to arrive on Wednesday and slot it in!

Next thing on the list is a shelf for the keyboard, followed by a keyboard and then some new monitors to take advantage of the graphics card.

What I Am Modelling

I started the week by building and priming my next 10 projects, including my next Underworlds warbands.

I then cracked on with the T’au Empire Strike Team, getting them finished on Tuesday night.

I started in the Zone Mortalis Walls, Columns and doors at long last, the doors were finished on Wednesday night and I think they look canny good.

I then cracked on with the walls and columns, none of which I have completed by today, but they are coming close.

So what coming up for me next

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Death Korps of Krieg Engineers x 10 and Hades Breaching Drill
  3. Secret Heresy Project Unit
  4. Nighthaunt Dreadscythe Harridans x 20
  5. Space Wolves Swiftclaws x 3
  6. Palanite Subjugators x 6, Enforcers x 5 & Ambots x 2
  7. Stormcast Eternals Lord-Aquilor, Lord-Exorcist & Gryph-Hounds x 6
  8. Blood Ravens Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles x 10
  9. Death Korps of Krieg Grenediers x 12
  10. The Grymwatch & Rippa’s Snarlfangs

What I Am Reading

Sadly not a lot 🙁

What I Am Playing

We had a game of Just One on Sunday, played with Megan’s mum over FaceTime and we scored 11 points.

Video game wise I played The Witcher on Tuesday for four hours, as you can see below.

And on Friday I did two hours of BioShock.

I still want to catch up and play the two hours of BioShock I missed.

What I Am Backing

Not backing anything right now.

What I Am Cooking

I made my dads stir fry on Wednesday as I was feeling down and wanted comfort food.

It literally is just microwave rice (he used Bachelors Savoury Rice) a couple of eggs, bacon lardons and some sausage.

But to me this is a real comforting memory of my youth in Suffolk.

On Friday I made Southern Fried Chicken Wings served with Red Potato Wedges.

My wedges were nowhere near as good as when Megan or Lindsay makes them mind.

And on Sunday myself and Megan made Black Bean Tacos, which were very very nice.

What I Am Spending

The Razorwire Energy drinks arrived on Tuesday, and they are really nice.

We ordered 60 serving tubs of cherry and apple, a 30 serving tub of raspberry, a fusion shaker and a sample of tropical.

The flavours are great, not too in your face and they certainly don’t taste as harsh as the stuff that comes in cans.

I think I will be ordering another shaker for Megan to use as she wants to have drinks now and then, although she wants one from Sneak because she likes bunnies!

Last week I ordered a combination HDMI switch and extractor to improve my streams, particularly for the Switch.

I got it installed in place and for part 4 of my Witcher III stream on Tuesday and it did make a noticeable improvement.

I did have to order a short 3.5mm extension cable to make sure it was all tidy when using it and I didn’t have wires all over the place, but it works pretty well.

I attached it to the wall just below my monitor using some Velcro strips, and it has a remote control allowing me to switch between inputs very easily.

My new Xbox Controller arrived. This will served two functions, first it will allow me to improve the stream audio by allowing me to listen the it over a headset, and mute the monitor, and secondly it will connect to my PC and allow me to use it in PC games.

Although the HDMI extractor kinda made the first function redundant, but hey, I can now play some games on the PC a lot easier now.

I paid a visit to Battle Bunker on Saturday and grabbed a few things, basically paints and the new Terminator Chaplain, and I got the Recruit Edition of Warhammer 40,000 in an impulse purchase!

And obviously I ordered the GPU.

  • Mood:- Knackered
  • Caffeinated Beverages Consumed:- 6
  • In My Ears:-
  • Tabletop Game Last Played:- Just One
  • Video Game Lat Played:- The Witcher III: Wild Hunt
  • Book Last Read:- The Last Ritual- S A Sidor
  • Movie/TV Show Last Viewed:- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
  • Current State of Projects:- Zone Mortalis Walls and Columns 75% done

First Week of Streaming

By

On 26th October 2020

In Blog

It’s gone ok, few teething issues, like I got to make sure the video capture card is working before I start.

And I have sat down and started on refining the sound quality as it’s not been the best, think I need to put headphones on for the in game sounds so it’s not picked up on by the microphone.

So that’s been put into motion and I have ordered a headset for gaming and a new Xbox Controller to allow me to use it.

The Switch is simple as all I have to do it plug in my headset.

Gonna get Megan’s help to take some publicity photos and I am really gonna start on the promo work this next week.

Right now I just wanna get it working first.

What I Am Modelling

I started the week off by painting Grashrak’s Despoilers for Beastgrave which were a lot of fun to paint.

Beasts of Chaos are amazing, and I would love to paint a full army of them, but I really don’t have the space for another army.

I then wanted to paint Skaeth’s Wild Hunt but annoyingly the second layer I wanted to do, well the paint had completely dried up!

So a new pot of Flayed One Flesh had to be bought, which was acquired by Megan on Thursday.

I painted up the MV71 Sniper Drones and Firesight Marksman for my T’au Empire, these got done fairly quickly and were in fact a joy to paint.

Whilst waiting for the Flayed One Flesh, I painted some Ork Nobz, I promised this to another streamer, Cerantis, who is sorting out some Ork models to be donated to a young lad battling Leukaemia.

I also worked on a Warboss and Mekboy Workshop for him, and the Warboss was finished on Saturday.

With the Flayed One Flesh in hand I was able to make more progress on Skaeth’s Wild Hunt, they took a little while to do and were quite a different type of unit than I have done before.

And my first time using clear paints too, which are very interesting to work with.

I then picked up a T’au Empire Strike team and started painting them, getting the drones finished on Sunday night.

So what’s coming up next then?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. T’au Strike Team x 10
  3. Death Korps of Krieg Engineers x 10 & Hades Breaching Drill
  4. Secret Heresy Project Unit
  5. Nighthaunt Dreadscythe Harridans x 20
  6. Space Wolves Swiftclaws x 3
  7. Palanite Subjugators x 6, Enforcers x 5 & Ambots x 2
  8. Stormcast Eternals Lord-Aquilor, Lord-Exorcist & Gryph-Hounds x 6
  9. Blood Ravens Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles x 10
  10. Death Korps Krieg Grenediers x 12

What I Am Reading

Not as much as I would have liked to, and I got none of my book read at all 🙁

I did finally get around to listening to the audio book of Lion El’Jonson: Lord of the First, which was fairly interesting.

What I Am Playing

We had a game of Star Trek Adventures again on Wednesday and this time Lindsay and Megan were able to join in.

Our ship was escorting a Vorta prisoner to an exchange with the Dominon when it was seemingly sabotaged.

Unfortunately power and connection issues for our GM Chris meant that we had a bit more downtime than I think we all would have liked.

Video game wise, I started the week by starting The Witcher III: Wild Hunt on the Xbox One, which I am streaming and you can see that below.

And on Friday I started a play through of BioShock: The Collection, again I will pop the videos below.

What I Am Backing

Not backing anything now, but I did complete the survey for The Rival Networks.

What I Am Cooking

On Monday I cooked us all an omelette for our “together breakfast”. Normally this is Sunday morning but this week it was Monday as Lindsay and Megan were helping Jane sort some stuff out for the Newcastle Mutual Aid group to pull together some food to help sort out food parcels for kids over half term.

It was just a big cheese one, not fancy but it was nice.

What I Am Spending

I caved, and I decided to swap out my iPhone 11 for an iPhone 12!

I know people will accuse me of being a sheep and all that, but I just like the way iPhones and iOS works.

Plus at this point I am pretty solidly bought into the whole iOS ecosystem, having an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and AirPods!

Anyway I got the 128gb model in green.

I did place a small order with Element Games, I bought some Open Engine War Cards for Adeptus Titanicus, a pot of Grey Seer, an Army Painter Character Brush and a pot of Turbo Dorks Shell-Shocked.

And myself and Megan made an order for some Razorwire Energy drink powder.

We had a 20% off voucher and ordered a bundle of two 60 serving tubs, with apple and cherry flavours and a shaker, a 30 serving tub of raspberry and a sample of tropical.

This should get delivered on Tuesday as it took us over the limit for free delivery with DPD.

I also made a leap and ordered a new headset for gaming, my budget was very limited so I got a Razer Kraken X, this got delivered on Monday and hopefully this will help me deal with the sound issues that are irritating me on the streams.

And so that I can actually use the headset with the Xbox I ordered a refurbished Xbox One Controller from eBay which hopefully should arrive in the next week.

My mouse is also dying so a cheap replacement to get me by until I can afford a decent one was ordered. I got it for £13, should have been £18 but Amazon had a £5 off voucher deal for it.

It’s nice cause of the RGB effects, but it’s very much a get me by until I get a proper decent one.

I also ordered a HDMI Extractor, because it turns out the Switch doesn’t allow me to output sound to both the HDMI and the headset at the same time, so that was ordered and should replace my current HDMI splitter as well.

This Weeks Gaming Stream

By

On 24th October 2020

In Game Streams

So with me doing regular Twitch streams, I figure that it might be good to put together my gaming streams into a weekly blog post.

So here is his weeks

Tuesday – The Witcher III – Wild Hunt (XB1)

Thursday – BioShock (NSW)

Streaming Schedule Finalised

By

On 20th October 2020

In Blog

So this week I finally sat down with Lindsay and Megan and worked out my schedule.

I need a schedule to try and get myself back on track personally and give me some structure.

I am using streaming as something to do, to keep me motivated and on track.

So here is my schedule for Monday to Friday

Monday

  • 2000 – 0000 – Minis Painting

Tuesday

  • 1100 – 1300 – The Witcher III on Xbox
  • 1400 – 1600 – The Witcher III on Xbox

Wednesday

  • 1400 – 1600 – Minis Painting

Thursday

  • 2000 – 0000 – Minis Painting

Friday

  • 1100 – 1300 – BioShock: The Collection on Switch
  • 1400 – 1600 – BioShock: The Collection on Switch

Weekends are being left free to do stuff, I may do ad hoc stuff but nowt scheduled in.

I started tonight with my first stream, which you can see below.

New CPAP Machine

This week the NHS sleep clinic gave me an upgraded CPAP machine, following Covid they figured they need to keep a closer eye on my sleep apnoea.

The new machine is a ResMed Airsense 10 Elite, which is a lot smaller than my old machine and a lot fancier.

For one, it’s got a built in 4G modem so it uploads my sleep data each night direct to the sleep clinic, so if I don’t use it, I get a telling off.

It’s also got a built in humidifier which really contributes to the smaller footprint and allows you to actually control it. So I have been able to set the level to humidity to one I am very comfortable with.

Overall it’s a very compact machine and is far less complicated to set up and use than my old one.

And obviously very glad that we have the NHS because if I had to buy this privately, well, it costs more than my PC!!!

PC Cleanup & Graphics Card Dilema

I took a bit of time to tidy up the PC interior and fit the Wi-Fi antennas.

I rerouted the cables for the CPU cooler to go behind the motherboard and just about was able to get them into the headers, but the fan cable required an extension cable.

I also removed a 2TB HDD which wasn’t working, and did a general tidy up of the wires.

The target for saving for a graphics card is currently £200, but I may end up bumping that up to £250.

I am currently thinking a GTX 1660 Super is about what I want, but with the unveiling of Big Navi later this month, it may result in price drops to the RTX 2060 and the 5600 XT to be in my budget.

The headline is, I do not really need to go to anything beyond 1080p. It would be nice to eventually get a 1440p monitor, but that’s a long way off.

So the question is, do I stick to my guns and hope the GTX 1660 Super also benefits from some price drops, or do I perhaps go bigger and try and grab a better card to future proof and make 1440p gaming a possibility.

Either way I am not going to be making a decision until I have hit the £200 in savings and the Big Navi reveal.

All things being equal, I hope to have about £175 by early November so it’s likely I could be able to make a purchase in the Black Friday sales.

New Addition to the Studio

Megan has cross stitched for me this wonderful piece featuring all the lead characters from the main Star Trek series and their ships.

Looks fantastic on the wall of the studio and really helps complete the place.

What I Am Modelling

I started the week by building the Ambots for Necromunda, and then I built the Palanite Enforcers and Subjugators from Dark Uprising.

Whilst playing Star Trek Adventures on Wednesday night, I finished off painting the Palanite Enforcers Patrol, and then got transfers on them Thursday morning.

I then placed a T’au Stealth Team and Commander in XV86 Coldstar armour on my painting table, along with the Marketlight Drone and Homing Beacon from the Stealth Team.

These were finished surprisingly quickly, I think the wet palette had really helped when painting T’au.

Next up were the Hellblasters for the Blood Ravens, two squads of them. One squad of ten, containing the five from Dark Imperium and five multipart ones, and then a squad of five with Heavy Plasma Incinerators.

Going forward when it comes to Hellbalsters, I want two more boxes of them, one to make into a squad armed with Assault Plasma Incinerators. And the other to split between the Blood Ravens, with five bulking out the squad with Heavy Plasma Incinerators.

I tonight started on Grashrak’s Despoilers from Beastgrave which is on the Twitch stream above.

So what’s coming up in my painting plan then?

  1. Zone Mortalis Terrain
  2. Grashrak’s Despoilers x 6 & Skaeth’s Wild Hunt x 5
  3. T’au Strike Team x 10 & Sniper Drone Team
  4. Death Korps of Krieg Engineers x 10 & Hades Breaching Drill
  5. Secret Heresy Project Unit
  6. Nighthaunt Dradscythe Harridans x 20
  7. Space Wolves Swiftclaws x 3
  8. Palanite Subjugators x 6 & Enforcers x 5
  9. Stormcast Eternals Lord-Aquior, Lord-Exorcist & Gryph-Hounds x 6
  10. Blood Ravens Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles x 10

What I Am Reading

I finished Doom of Fallowhearth, and you can read my review here.

I started on The Last Ritual by S A Sidor, which is an Arkham Horror book.

What I Am Playing

A bit of Star Wars: Squadrons which I am really enjoying, even been streaming a bit of it too.

I joined the Mills brothers for the conclusion to our Star Trek Adventures game on Roll20. We saved the planet and didn’t destroy the Cardassian Space Station in the process.

It got really tense and came down to the last rolls of the game, we needed four successes with four dice, and we just pulled it off!

What I Am Backing

No projects in the pipeline at the minute, but I completed the survey for

I also finally got my transfers for Forgotten Chapters, these are really lovely and I can’t wait to get them onto my Sisters of Battle models.

What Am I Cooking

On Thursday I made burgers, but in a nod to depression era recipes, 25% of the meat was replaced by onion.

This makes them very flavourful, although Megan hates the idea of them and had a vegan burger instead.

What I Am Spending

I didn’t go mad on Prime Day, mostly because I am saving towards a new graphics card.

I did pick up an Echo Dot 3rd Generation for Lindsay’s Office, but she took over that and paid for it, so I didn’t spend the money.

And for myself I got a third party dock for the Switch, so when streaming from that I don’t need to take down the main dock from upstairs.

In the Sega 60th Anniversary sale on Steam, in indulged and bought the Sega Mega Drive Classics collection of 57 games and Sonic CD, which cost me a bit over £6.

At some point I plan to play though the 3 Mega Drive Sonic games and Sonic CD, my only disappointment is that Knuckles Chaotix has yet to be ported to anything at all.

I also managed to grab a Servants of the Abyss sprue to complete my Blackstone Fortress collection.

  • Mood:- Satisfied
  • Caffeinated Beverages Consumed:- 5
  • In My Ears:-
  • Tabletop Game Last Played:- Star Trek Adventures
  • Video Game Lat Played:- Star Wars Squadron
  • Book Last Read:- The Last Ritual- S A Sidor
  • Movie/TV Show Last Viewed:- Glee
  • Current State of Projects:- Grashrak’s Despoilers 50 % done, Mekboy Workshop 10% done, Ork Nobz and Warboss primed
  • Graphics Card Fund:- £40– 20%

Project Big Picture

By

On 13th October 2020

In Blog

I don’t often talk football, beacuse whilst I love the sport, I am not the most knowlegable about it, and when I talk about it, I tend to make a fool of myself.

But Project Big Picture makes me want to break that habbit, beacvuse I have feelings about it.

Simply put, I think that many of the proposals are good, the 25% of money going to the EFL is a great start, but the power aspect I utterly disagree with. Placing power into the hands of the nine longest serving members of the league is not a good thing, and allowing them the power of veto over takeovers and other issues is a bad road to go down.

If we take the aborted Saudi takeover of Newcastle United, we know how that would have played out, the big six would have all said no to the possibility of a club with the ability to disrupt their dominance of the league. How is that fair, it would essentially create a closed shop at the top of the league.

These proposals would lead to stagnation in the league and a loss of competition and excitement. And the abolition of the League Cup and reduction of the league to 18 teams robs other teams of much needed match day revenue.

As I said before there are good aspects, the 25% of TV deals and abolition of parachute payments will make the EFL much healthier and better positioned to survive, but the special voting rights are bad for the Premier League, and bad for football in general.

In this instance, if the big six want to form a breakaway league, I say let them, the pyramid is bigger than six clubs mostly owned by billionaire’s, and I think the other clubs need to be prepared to jetision the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United if they want to use the Covid-19 crisis to make such an audacious power grab.

So that’s my biannual football post done, but in all seriousness, I think that the state of the game in this country would be infinitely worse off if these proposals were accepted in their current form.

Doom of Fallowhearth

By

On 12th October 2020

In Book Reviews, Reviews

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Descent: Journeys in the Dark book The Doom of Fallowhearth 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’s 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’s is Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Simply put Descent: Journeys in the Dark is good old fashioned dungeon crawler whose linage goes all the way back to Heroquest.

Based very much on the Doom board game published by Fantasy Flight Games, you can see influences from across the gaming hobby, with bits from Space Hulk and Lord of the Rings being identifiable.

It’s set in the world of Terrinoth, a setting shared with Runewars, Runeage and a few other games and RPGs published by Fantasty Flight Games.

It’s a high fantasy universe and you will recognise many of the tropes and races seen in other similar fantasy style settings. It’s not particularly unique, but it is fairly well developed and interesting.

Descent is the dungeon crawler game in that universe, with one player being the evil overlord of the dungeon and the others taking in the tiles of the hero’s.

For a dungeon crawler, let’s be honest it’s one of the best out there, and the only reason it’s not in my collection is that Lindsay and Megan aren’t as enthusiastic about high fantasy as I am!

The Story

I am gonna be upfront about this, the book is at the same time, familiar and comfortable whilst still being new and innovative. It’s contradictory but it works.

The basic plot is that a band of adventurers are reunited to try and find Lady Katheryn the daughter of the rulers of one of Terrinoths baronies. She had been sent to the northern frontier town of Fallowhearth to learn how to rule, and prepare her to take up her mother’s position.

The adventurers are three of the Borderlands Four, characters who fit common tropes, yet subvert them in very interesting ways. There is the human rogue, who just wants to go back home and sit down, the dwarven alchemist who is mainly interested in blowing stuff up and the orc pathfinder who is the levelheaded leader of the pack and probably the most sensible of them.

The tone of the story is gritty and dark, it’s a very modern take on the old sword and sorcery story from my youth. There is certainly a shared history between the characters, and some bitterness, weariness and regrets too, and whilst we don’t exactly get a full and complete backstory, we don’t need it because it feels so natural.

This story is a tale of revenge and love, and asks the question, how far would you go for someone you love, how deep would you go?

Conclusion

This is a surprisingly emotional story and parts of it literally had my heart crushed, and I was moved to tears as well.

This is generally a very by the numbers story and you pick it up and start it thinking it’s gonna be just a pulpy fantasy adventure. But it’s not, it’s deeply emotional and shows that a good writer and make a familiar and well trod genre, fresh and invigorating.

I’d also loved that we had some really good normalised LGBT representation in there, which felt very natural, very right and fitted so well with the story.

Solid 5 out of 5 stars.

The book is released out now in North America and available in the U.K. on the 26th November.

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