December 2022 review

The final monthly recap, but unlike last year, it will be mostly about the month of december and less about the whole last year.

In 2021, due to the move of the whole studio, the activity had a bit of drop and there were only 77 new posts - much fewer articles published that year compared to the years before (2018 - 140 new posts, 2019's 176 and 2020 - 195 new posts,), but we managed to raise that back about 80% to 135 articles in 2022! Yes, there were further additions to the review section among those posts, roughly 40 new reviews on the blog - marking the barrier of over 300 reviews on this lovely project of mine. But most importantly, I managed to get more structure into my projects and written down ideas and intentions on projects, along with a bit of building and painting, which will be pushed more into focus.

Chaosbunker is non-commercial hobby blog. I am not doing this for money, hence no (paid) advertisement, as this keeps me independend. This is my hobby and I want it to stay that way, because I want to move further into that area of wargaming, that I enjoy and move further away from those parts that I don't. This still means creating content, because I enjoy that, but more of that kind that is fun to produce (I already did a lot in my favor, to mostly only cover products in reviews, that I am certain are of proper quality).

I enjoyed the participation on events this year a lot, and played far too few games and had far too few get togethers for painting etc. with my gaming buddies. I got invited for an Adeptus Titanicus event in february 2023, and I have to get my maniple up and running. Which means the continuation of Legio Astraman Ad Arma! White is an ungrateful colour to paint over black. I tried with multiple thin coats of white, went over to Grey Seer (which did not really work either), but with Corax White, I managed to get a proper base, even in a thinned down variant. So, that's my task of the next days, along with Deathworld Forest and Gun Metal, to cover the base colours.

Had the 3d printer running again, this time for a christmas present for one of my eldest wargaming buddies, Indiyeeha. We started together back in the day, and he is a oldhammer enthusiast as well and when I found these files of the monopose Ork Boy and Gretchin, I printed them at 200% as something special, to place upon a shelf or just funny collectors piece. Once they were printed, I had some really odd errors on them and couldn't really make any sense out of it. Looked fine in Chitubox and Photon Workshop, but I was recommended to load them up in Lychee and about 50 errors came up. Afterwards I looked into the sliced files and I saw the "bleeding" on those layers as well. But beyond that, I am once again amazed what my entry-levele printer is able to produce. No steps, pretty clean finish, almost like injection moulded.

I followed up on the Battlefleet Gothic project, adding the Dark Mechanicum Cruisers to my chaos fleet and put them on the printer as well - along with a special something that SkullForge Studios released on their Patreon and Gumroad. It is not fully painted yet, and I am unsure on the level of work I should put into that, as this is "just" a christmas ornament. Oddly enough, white primer, a thinned coat of Solar Orange (OOP Citadel Foundation colour) and a bit of skin toned colour in the face creates a lot of progress in this one.

And I managed to get lucky on eBay, getting my hands on both, the Imperial Fists and Black Legion doors, that I need for my Proteus Land Raiders. The Fists one is very 3rd edition styled, but I think I can make this work, as for the Black Legion one with the Eye of Horus. you can't imagine how happy this makes me. And another eBay deal, finally brought Cypher into my hands. Cypher would have the option to have a small retinue of Fallen Angels, rulewise counting as Chaos Space Marine Veterans. I saw a picture online, of somebody converting them from Space Marines and using among others Catachan Heads, so when a few weeks ago somebody offered damaged metal Space Marines, I bought a few, along with a Veteran Sergeant, that would allow me to recreate this nice looking conversion (fourth picture, middle).

And the holidays hit different once you have kids, and even we felt that they were a bit overwhelmed by a three day marathon of gifts and festive meals. With the attention towards the kids, the presents for the grown ups are a bit different. I just got myself with Anno 1800 in the Steam Sale, so a current guide (without agonizing streamer noises) was a nice addition, as was the rotary tool and for me self, christmas wouldn't be christmas if I wouldn't have the chance to build some bricks at some point later on one of the evenings.

Like Dino, I was a guest as well on the Games 'n Dice podcast. They invited me for the topic of different kind of media used for content creation in tabletop wargaming. Had a great time, it is available in German on various platforms, among others Spotify.

A bit of a "late" christmas present to myself. I got the two Warcrys Ghur themed  "starter sets" (there reason why there are quotes around that will be covered in an article of its own...), primarely for the terrain, as I split these with a few hobbyists from TabletopWelt. Radaddel provided once again great service, having my very late decision to get these fulfilled within 48 hours - and that during the holidays!

And like last year, we did something for cancer research and have some plans for next year as well. I was asked to support a charity miniature, which I'll do as soon as it is available and have further items in preparation - but more on that in Q1 of 2023.

I could once again pick up travelling to events and add some new articles to that section, and I am very happy about that. Yet, far to few events and I hope that we can make more of this happen in 2023. Starting with the Scenario (where I went the last time in 2015 as it seems) in about two weeks and currently looking towards Hamburg for the Tactica weekend (last time was 2019), as a combined family / wargaming dads weekend (Tierpark Hagenbeck, Miniaturwunderland, etc.) - our hotel is already booked.

Internal Conflict

Rhein-Main-Multiversum

Not-Crisis but LARDwerp

Cooking is still a topic, not as present on the blog, but will return as part of the system introductions and battle reports (currently talking with Dino if we are able to do something for Super Bowl). I still use our new kitchen very often, improving my pizza game. Due to some food intolerance, I am baking mostly with spelt flour / Dinkel, this means some alterations to existing recipes and tinkering about with the hydration. Along with the temperature range, as I use a regular oven until I have access to an Ooni or Nero. So I did a white pie with garlic and different types of cheese, a grandma pie with boar sausage and arugula and a Detroid Style pan pizza.

I became better with some of the other recipes, I improved my spanish Tortilla / Tortilla de Patata game, tried out breakfast burritos and a Pizza Strudel.

Still have the intention to host private gaming events, we're all just rather busy, spread out and with family dates to combine, but I hope this is something we will be able to get managed.

Until then - Happy new year and we read again in the kick-off!