Event Schedule for 2023
A brief overview of the events that are on my radar for this year.
List will be updated accordingly and focus around DACH and BeNeLux countries, with minor exceptions for special occasions:
Bolt Action – M26 Pershing into T26E4 Super Pershing
It's been a while since our last Bolt Action tank review. The last one we covered on here, was the Sd.Kfz. 250 combi-kit that allowed us to build multiple variants (250/1, 250/9 and 250/11) and currently in progress are the new plastic kits for the Humber AC and Sd.Kfz. 222/223. And while I already showed you the current status of my Pershing(s), I thought it would make sense to show how I got there and what the resin kit by Warlord Games is all about.
So far Warlord Games only offers a resin kit of the M26 Pershing at 33,50 GBP / 40 EUR RRP. I bought this one a while ago - when it was noticeably cheaper in 2016.
Dino’s annual preview 2023
Aha, so it's 2023, anything special coming up this year? Well, I'm turning 42 and as everyone knows, 42 is the answer to all questions! To all questions? At least to one question I have the answer: do I need more minis? No, not 42...
The Great Moderation is a concept that I have been following for several years now, where I limit my budget to 20,- € per month, with the goal to increase my painting output of existing miniatures and to limit the new purchases in my hobby. As it turned out, 240,- € per year is quite a lot if you already have a bunch of miniatures at home and the pile just grows and grows. For this reason, I plan to cut my budget again - ironically, my strategy has also found approval in the forum of the Tabletopwelt and a group project has emerged from it, so to speak, the not so anonymous round of addicted hobbyists, in which if possible no new purchases should be made. However, everyone receives 150, - € annual budget - for slip ups. This seems feasible to me, since I have everything here, within the projects I pursue
But before I move on to tackle one of the leftover projects, I want to paint the new acquisitions from last year first, because there is also a part remaining. In addition, I will set myself a fairly small annual goal in 2023, since my hobby time continues to melt due to my professional commitments.
Kick Off 2023
We've done the sum up of last year already, so let's take a look ahead and see what 2023 has in it for us:
As a starting point, I looked up the 2022 Kick-Off article, to see what was the status quo, and what changed. Biggest improvement - not just spending hobby time by myself. In addition, as I am working as a sales rep, the re-ignition of actual (meaning offline) events was something that I really was looking for, so the lack of those was not hobby exclusive.
So that we could move from
to here
Shows, Conventions and real-life gaming meetups
I'll update the event schedule on here and prepare a post for 2022. So far booked are these;
- January 13th-15th - Tabletop Scenario, Hackenheim GER (visits 2013 and 2015) BOOKED!
- February 18th-19th - Tactica, Hamburg GER (visit 2019) BOOKED!
- April 22nd - Salute, London UK (visits 2012, 2016 and 2018) LIKELY!
- August 4th-6th - Bring out your Lead BOYL 2023, Newark UK (not yet)
- September TBA - Rhein Main Multiversum 2023 (visits 2018, 2019 and 2022) VERY LIKELY!
- October 14th-15th - ScaleModelChallenge - Eindhoven, NL (visit 2015) LIKELY!
Dino’s annual review 2022
It's that time again, a whole year has gone by and I have quite mixed feelings when I look back. From a hobby point of view, all in all, it actually went quite well. I have not reached my goal for the year, but I was and am close.
At the beginning of the year, I managed to paint the two remaining archers from the Corinthian part of my Mortal Gods army quite quickly. In fact, it went so smoothly that I would have loved to paint another troop right away, and I've assembled another group in the meantime.
Corinthian archers
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.
Dino’s November 2022
Yes, the recap for December is also almost due and yet I'm only now showing you my recap for November - well, I'll try to explain....
Hobbywise, I started a lot this month, hoping to use December to reach my goal for the year. Among other things, I started the third Blood Bowl player to have at least half the Blitz Bowl team completely painted.
Bolt Action – M26 Pershing and T26E4 Super Pershing
A while ago I started converting a M26 Pershing resin tank kit by Warlord Games into a T26E4 Super Pershing.
There are a few articles on the T26E4, among others on Tank Encyclopedia or Wikipedia, explaining what this Super Pershing is. Because it is not a paper tank like many E-series German tanks, but a real (field) conversion to further up-armour the M26 Pershing. The M26 was deployed rather late in January 1945 to Europa via the Port of Antwerp, and these 20 tanks would be the only Pershings to see combat in World War too, with the famous duel taking place later in March in Cologne. And while this heavy tank was a much-needed upgrade to the American armoured units, it made fighting Panthers and Tigers easier - compared to the Shermans, but it would still struggle against the Tiger II, while the units moved further into Germany. For that reason the M26 was uparmoured with a more powerful cannon, the T15E1. Yet a small batch of tanks were produced and further upgraded with a T15E2 gun, but only a single one of these made it to Germany in the very last moments of world war 2. I am huge fan of these rarities and field conversions, so I began building it, by using plastic card to recreate the salvaged Panther front plate on the chassis and added the "ears" and additional armour for the gun mount.
HANS VIII – Starting the next round of the traveling tabletop box
Another instalment of HANS! went through here after April and as there were no other chances for a bring & buy or other kind of browsing through Wargaming items lately, I gladly picked up the chance again.
November 2022 review
Sorry for the delay, the change of month some kind of passed me - hobbywise, so here it is.