July 2022 review

Welcome to August and let's take a look back on last month and the overall update in the bunker.

I treated myself with another Space Marine Action Figure, this time the Todd McFarlane Chaos Space Marine in the Artist Proof  variant, to paint yourself. Along with some 3d printed bits, this should be a cool looking miniature once painted.

Via Tabletopper.nl I got myself a nice addition to my Panzergarage, a Strabokran kit by Rubicon. I designed the garage myself, as I wanted a proper looking scenic backdrop for pictures of my armoured vehicles.

With the announcement of the Horus Heresy supplement for Aeronautica, I'll postpone my painting of the World Eaters Xiphon Interceptors, just in case there's a more interesting idea in there. And it is quite likely, that I'll cover that book in a review.

My first custom order from MegaSonicPunch arrived. Had some designs by Seven United printed in PLA for my Necromunda terrain building projects.

As for the Horus Heresy; I have completed (audio) book 7 of the Horus Heresy - Legion covering the Alpha Legion, with a surprising twist at the end. The story was partially hard to follow, as some side characters have similar names und with the crossing double-crossing, double-double crossing it was easy to loose track, if you're not fully listening. I am already on to Battle for the Abyss, the next book, going for a stronger focus on the Legiones Astartes.

Other than that, we've covered a few more topics in the Horus Heresy 2.0 coverage, an Interview with BroncoFish, along with the next steps and my decision to go for a smaller scale for the civil war in the Imperium. Yet, I'm currently looking into bases sizes, as 5 ~8mm-ish Marines and especially Terminators look kinda cramped on a 25mm round base.

I only need to cover the showcase article on the Blood Bowl team, so that's finished and obviously the question, what's next? The beastmen cover my access to fantasy skirmishers (Mordheim, Sellswords & Spellslingers, Frostgrave, and so on), the Chaos Team access to Blood Bowl across the different editions, and now I'd go for either something historical or sci-fi. And I think the next logical step would be to paint up a sci-fi warband and that's very likely something from my Necromunda stock. Probably that I'll pick up the Orlock gang for this.

I got all excited about Crisis in the last months sum up, and well, seems it was a bit early. Due to multiple circumstances adding up the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp cancelled the event. It was not just Covid, or just Brexit, but various risks piling up and it is absolutely comprehensible that at some point you have to act. Tactica for example has no non-EU traders at all at the current status, and that is one of the USPs of Crisis, that you had access to a lot of british manufacturers and traders. But most of them would have to take care of the temporary export of their goods for the show, and as many didn't cover IOSS or similar things after brexit, it is rather unlikely that they will take care of that. And with rising energy costs, the trip to Antwerp is more expensive for all participants, with the additional risk that it is unclear how much money the visitors will spend at the show, as hobby budgets may have taken a hit over the last months due to inflation / risen living costs. And on top of that, from what I understand the Belgian government has released their health plan for autumn, which limits the amount of people participating in events like these shows and it seems that they would only be able to accomodate about 25% of the regular crowd. All in all not the best basis for planning and hosting such an event.

But let's see, how things develop and which options for get togethers will still be possible until the end of the year.