The Great Wargaming Survey 2018
And in 2018 Wargames Soldiers & Strategy once again hosts the Great Wargaming Survey!
For the fifth year in a row, Wargames Soldiers & Strategy magazine is running the Great Wargaming Survey. With many thousands of respondents every year to an ever evolving (and sometimes revolving) set of questions, it gives a constantly improving image of 'the average [responding] wargamer'.
Enjoying parental leave
I'm currently taking a parental leave of around 2 months (if you count in the two weeks "pre-arrival" vacation, it's even longer) and that gives me a lot of time to spend with my new-born daughter. It is quite overwhelming, satisfying and exhausting, everything at the same time. She sleeps a lot and I spend that time to support my wife (who is doing an amazing job on being a mother), cooking and trying out some new recipes, as well as of course enjoying a bit more time than usual in my "hobby den".
Our baby carrier arrived this weekend and but we waited to put into use until today, with the help of our midwife, to make sure we do nothing wrong. And what can I say, having to free arms / hands is a game changer. I tell you, eating gets a lot more difficult if you only have one free hand and it's even more difficult if it is your off-hand. The little one loves the proximity and some of the basic stuff I can do with here in front of me. But I'm covering all the parental things on Little Big Adventures (in German).
So what am I currently tinkering about? Well, last Sunday Daniel / Dino (freshly baked dad himself) dropped by, we talked about his upcoming Konflikt '47 Italy army and what possibilities for conversions are in the room. I can tell you, quite a lot. But he'll cover that in separate articles. I took a break or better said interruption from the dominantly historic ww2 reviews, from those Tigers, Hetzers and Marders. I do like those kits and they are fun to build, but a bit more variation is a healthy thing to do, I added a bit of fantasy and sci-fi in there, along with different historical epochs.
A Warhammer store on my doorstep
Earlier this year I saw an unexpected advertisment by Warhammer Recruiting on my facebook feed. They are looking for a Store Manager in Koblenz. Wait a minute? Koblenz? That's my (former) home town. That would mean ... that can't be ... a "real" Warhammer Store right on my doorstep?
I've lived in Koblenz, the beautiful city at Rhine and Mosel, for 7 years and if you would have told me, we would get a Games Workshop store in our city, I'd laughed and said no way. But on August 4th Warhammer Koblenz will open up. A bit strange feeling for me, the last time I've been to a Games Workshop Store Opening was almost 20 years ago. That was the Games Workshop in Darmstadt on June 26th 1999! I was there with my oldest friend, with whom I started wargaming back in the day.
New category: Little Big Adventures
Dear readers,
In future I'll cover on the chaosbunker under the category Little Big Adventures, a new and additional topic: having kids.
2017 was an eventful year with lots of changes and special moments. We were (from our point of view) on the other side of the globe, in New Zealand, which I covered in a few articles on here. Towards the end of last year, we had our civil wedding, within a small circle of people, and in summer our small family will become a little bit bigger, as we're expecting a baby daughter, (from what I've learned from Instagram I now have to add the hashtags #teamrosa and #happygirlhappydaddy at this point).
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) / DSGVO
Hello everybody,
on May 25th 2018 the new general data protection regulation (GDPR / DSGVO) will come into force. What does this mean? Well, it is a regulation to ensure the safety of personal data, your personal data. What has this to do with chaosbunker and why do I cover this topic on here? Due to the activity on this blog and the contents provided, these regulations have to be met by me and my blog as well.
What data does the chaosbunker gather? Beside the regular IP logs a host generates of data retrieval, there is not much the blog actually gathers on the visitor. WordPress, the blog software chaosbunker uses, sets a cookie that stores a bit of information, for example if you use the german or english version of this page and the next time you visit chaosbunker, your prefered language is loaded. Beyond that, what data is collected? Well, the regular WordPress stats, I can see how often articles are read, which are more popular than others, and a very basic reference (how visitors came here by Google search, social media or boards, etc.) without any actual personal information who the visitors actually are. But that's it, nothing more than that.
Further than that, I updated and modified this WordPress installation so that not more data is gathered than actually is needed. For example, the facebook widget in the lower right corner was removed, as this would forward your information to Facebook. This does not really comply with the idea of the GDPR, so I ditched that one. There are two facebook buttons on the upper right, so if you want to follow / visit me on facebook, please follow that link and leave me a like.
Usually comments save the IP of the person who wrote the comment. That one was taken care as well, the IP is briefly checked by our spam protection and deleted right afterwards. All of the old IP information was replaced with a generic IP as well. All information in the comments is voluntary and if you'd like a former comment to be deleted, please get in touch with me. The contact details are in the imprint.
As with Youtube, I took care of all the embedded videos (roughly a dozend) that have been posted here over the last decade and updated them to the data protected version. So no information is transmitted to Youtube unless you actually watch the video.
And as a further upgrade, the chaosbunker is now SSL encrypted, so the data that is transmitted is encrypted. You can see that, by the green lock next to the URL in your browser. How about that?
You see, I take this task seriously and try to comply with the requirements accordingly. Thank you for your attention, have a pleasant stay on this blog.
Salute 2018 Haul
The concluding post to our Operation Sealion 2018, the haul, the loot, the gathered goodies and shiny stuff made from metal, plastic and resin. If you're going by plane, make sure to have enough empty space in your luggage to cope with your buying. As mentioned before, I was quite happy about the shipping services of some of the companies (and that is the reason, why this post was postponed in comparison with the other coverage, as I was waiting for the remaining miniatures and kit to arrive).
But let's begin, this pile of boxes and blister is my yield of our trip to Nottingham and Salute. Let us begin with the main event, the Salute 2018. The South London Warlords did once again a great job with the show, and I made sure to get my hands on the 1918 memory event exclusive vignette, sculpted by Perry Miniatures. It shows a trio of Soldiers from World War one, a french, a british and a german soldier. The always have further souvenirs at their booth, so I made sure to grab two sets of dices (with a poppy on the six), a badge and a copy of last years female russian standard bearer miniature.
Salute 2018 Aftermath
After having a pint or two next to ExCel at Fox, we headed to Borough Market. Imagine an urban district dedicated to food, food of all kinds, that's Borough Market.
Intro to Salute
Last thursday, on April 12th, Operation Sealion 2018 started. We went to Cologne Bonn Konrad Adenauer Airport, for our four day trip to the UK for Salute and a brief day trip to the Leadbelt.
There are a couple of ways to get to London. Two years ago and before that, we did the Salute as a day trip, grabbing a flight from Cologne to Stansted or Frankfurt to Heathrow. Flying from Germany takes roughly 1 to 1,5 hrs and sets you back between 70 - 150 Euro, depending on who you fly with. Just for Salute a rental car would only make sense, if the group is bigger than two people, as the London Underground is superb and reasonably priced. Only the shuttles ex-airport are sometimes a bit expensive. As we headed north to Nottingham, that question was already solved. Rentals are quite cheap in the UK, you can get cars for around 30 Euro per day. We paid just over 90 Euro for the prolonged weekend incl. unlimited miles. For rental cars I usually go with Budget, a daughter company of Avis. They offer good and uncomplicated service at reasonable quotes. The Honda Jazz was brand new, but not that much fun to drive and had a unpleasant driver seat.
Ryanair changed a lot in the last few months, along with strict limitations on the cabin luggage and checkin in. If you book all the excluded things to get back to a regular ticket, you end up with a price around the area of a Lufthansa ticket from FRA to LHR. Our flight was delayed by almost two hours due to mist, and on arrival we met quite a different weather compared to Spain two weeks ago.
Campaign Sea Lion 2018
It is time to take another approach and try to loot the Island for pewter, plastic and resin! Thursday we head over to the UK, for a short trip to the "Leadbelt" of Nottingham as well as paying a visit to the Salute on saturday.
Salute is the largest wargaming event in the UK, hosted by the South London Warlords at ExCel London on April 14th. Crisis in Antwerp is hard competition in size to this event, as it is larger on floor terms, but Salute is more international and has the benefit of being british homeground.
More from the Balearic Island of Mallorca
On friday, March 30th, our exploring journey of the island continued. We set for the southern part and made several stops along the coast, beginning with Cala Figuera. We had great luck with the weather, it was bright and sunny, and just look at these blues of sky and sea.
The second row shows the weathered stone ground along the coast line. With the smaller puddles it looks so outlandish, I thought this could be an interesting idea for an alien planet, using lava stones and such to recreate the surface. As a basing design for sci-fi settings like Gates of Antares or maybe a Necron or Mechanicus army project.
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