April 2021 review
We managed to raise ~510 EUR for cancer research in April with the sale of Warhammer Underworlds and Kill Team promos, as that would be an odd number, I rounded it up to 550 EUR and donated the money yesterday morning to the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg.
There are still a "few" tokens, cards and dice left, so if you want to join in on the May pot (and don't mind the german language on some of the items), get in touch with me.
Twelve months, 20,- Euros – Part 4
The good news first: I found a new job and am more relaxed about that issue now. On the other hand, of course, this means that I have to concentrate on learning the routine and, at the same time, my hobby time is melting away.
So, I'm not surprised that I easily stayed within my hobby budget in April and again only painted one miniature. Since I was somehow not satisfied with the first iteration of Dromeas, I painted another model with the same background story in mind.
Bolt Action Campaign Mariana & Palau Islands
A bit of catching up to do. While Bolt Action returns to D-Day with the current and next campaign supplement, we have to catch up and revisit the pacific with Bolt Action Campaign Mariana & Palau Islands.
For those of you, not familiar with the pacific campaign, a brief intro on the campaign might come in handy. We have had releases covering the (South) East Asian conflict for Bolt Action with Empires in Flames and New Guinea. And with Mariana & Palau, the US Forces, especially the Marines are moved into focus, in their battles against the Japanese. At 160 pages it doesn't set a new record in thickness, but is still broad and covering a lot of ground for the campaign. Pricing stays with the usual price band of 20 GBP or 30 USD (about 25 EUR). And as often with the Bolt Action / Osprey books, we had an early cover (left) and a changed final cover of the supplement (right), replacing the US Marine with an IJA soldier.
Valentine for Operation Lightfoot
One of the final pieces to add to my 8th army motor pool is a Valentine infantry tank. As the army is themed around Operation Lightfoot, a mid-war tank and mark would a great fit. As I've stocked the british themed army mostly with Rubicon vehicles, I wanted to keep on doing so. It is just ridiculously difficult to receive stock. The Valentine is part of the second wave 2020 novelties and it took until this week to get my hands on a boxed set.
I kept looking for it on my usual suppliers, like Fantasy-In, got in touch with them, but due to Brexit and the incredibly bad preparations by Rubicon UK, there was just no info on when it would be deliverable. Earlier this week Tabletopper.nl posted an update on their stock, covering the Valentine as well, and I gave it a go. As they "only" charged 7,90 EUR for shipping from the Netherlands to Germany, and even had some other items on stock that I was looking for for a while now (for example Empress' WW2 range, which I ordered through a german store in November and Empress didn't manage to supply them with stock pre-brexit nor afterwards), so I had an order with a total beyond 100 EUR it was free of shipping costs. But what amazed me the most, I ordered it on Wednesday morning and within an hour my order was picked and packed, and I received my tracking number just 75 minutes later. DPD did a great job as well, bringing the package within 48 hours to me. So chapeau to Tabletopper.nl, will keep an eye on you from now on.
March 2021 review
March was an eventful month - but less on the wargaming side, more personally. Our second child was born two weeks ago, a healthy boy, bringing a new daily routine with him.
Twelve months, 20,- Euros – Part 3
March is always a great month because it gives me the most opportunities for excuses (yes, I know how that sounds). At the beginning of the month I turned 40 - all the more reason to throw a little money out the window. Or is it?
Last month I was thinking about what I wanted to spend my monthly budget on, and that it would probably be a play mat. I've hesitated between four mats from PWorks:
Guess who’s back! HANS again!
It arrived! In July 2020 HANS was here the last time and it was glorious. Now he's back for his sixth tour and I was eager to see what was in there this time.
A not so happy post man brought him up to my door step, and his happyness to get rid off him vanished once I told him, don't worry, you're picking him up again in a few days. Yay ...
Renedra – Middle Eastern Two-Storey Houses
We've talked about the Mud-Brick house by Renedra earlier this month, and they added multiple two-storey houses to that design. Those are available in three different sizes and come either as single kits or a boxed set with all three of them. I went with the large set of middle eastern buildings, so let's get started.
These come either in a large bag for the single houses or in a cardboard box as a set. The packaging is full coloured and covers scenes of them in use, on the backside the individual sets as well as the Mud-brick house is named. Pricing is reasonable, 8 to 10 GBP (depending on the size) for the single houses and 22 GBP for the set of three. You already save 5 GBP with the boxed set.
Renedra – Mudbrick House
This review about the Mud-Brick House by Renedra, that I thought I already published (you could see it in my review on the sandbags), got lost somewhere in the past. I wanted to refer it in the upcoming review on the two-storey houses, but after not finding the review I realized, that I took the pictures, edited them and so on, but never wrote the actual article. Anyhow, I think it still generates value to talk about this kit, especially with a further terrain sets by Renedra, picking up the middle eastern theme.
February 2021 review
February is over and I'm still waiting for the arrival of my UK packages ... because it is still post-brexit chaos.