Christmas Weekender 2019

It's December 2019, only 4 weeks 'til christmas and the year is nearly over. So what's cooking in the remaining weeks until 2020?

Of course the project of Abaddon's Black Legion will continue, as it is the most compact of the Oldhammer / Midhammer / Retroprojects and therefore should be the easiest to finish.

I have covered the Chaos Terminators and regular Chaos Space Marines so far, along with Abaddon 2019 model im comparison to his older model. As for the future structure of the article series, the vehicle coverage will be continued - among them the chaos motor pool as well. The next units that will see a deep dive are the Plague Marines and World Eater Khorne Berzerkers, from there I'll move on to the characters and try to get some paint slapped on those models. I am still doing research on the Black Legion paint job and something that would suit the idea of this project, among with being appliable to the amount of miniatures and not just a skirmish warband.

A return of the old world of Warhammer was announced by Games Workshop. So a lot of speculations and the nowadays so popular reaction videos and such were posted based on ... nothing. Yes, we barely know two sentence worth of info on the new old thing and what is coming for your hobby budget. I am currently waiting for some more input, but have some ideas how to prelude this topic (Forge World did approach the Old World a while back with Warhammer Forge and that just seems to far back for many people, that they forgot, so I guess that would be an interesting point to start from to analyse the status-quo and parallels to the way they tackled the Horus Heresy).

The german podcast Krauthorn, talks about the return of the Old World in their latest issue. And they have a rather positive and more realistic approach, so give it a try at Soundcloud or Spotify. Both, Krauti and Jürgen have some time under their belts in tabletop wargaming, both having worked for Games Workshop, so having a more realistic insight than some of the BOLSshit that it shared out there. I especially find the Total War theory interesting.

I shared my personal thoughts on the Baron's War Kickstarter earlier this week. It created a bit of a fuzz on some parts of the internet, among one calling it manufactured malcontent (a polite way of saying fake news), but quite a few people share my conclusion of it not being the most motivating crowdfunding campaign. Never the less, Andy Hobday, one of the owner of Footsore and along with Paul Hicks initiator of the campaign, took the time to reply and gave some feedback to the things I pointed out. You can read the comment on the article linked above.

As for the next reviews, you will have noticed that I slowed down the pacing in the last few months. I already said in last year's round-up, that I want to produce more hobby content and to aid my personal hobby well-being more things for myself. I run this blog for fun, I don't sell adds and certainly not for the "free stuff", with the way I approach reviews - actually dealing with the item(s) in front of me and not just producing 4 picture / 10 sentence blog posts or 6 minute unboxing videos - it makes more sense for me to simply buy stuff and not cover it, instead of having it handed for free and then having to spend two days of work or more into a review. That is one of the reasons, why you will rarely see a scathing review on here. I've published over 200 reviews on here, with a couple of more in the past in other mediums and managed to develope a gut on what is worth spending the time on and what is not. For that reason I'll simply pass on items, that don't create joy spending time on (or are simply too expensive to be recommended).

But that doesn't mean that I won't do reviews in the future. I'll continue that part of the blog, but certainly more focused on the things that I enjoy, will be fun to cover/work on and/or items of which I think that they don't get the attention they should have. So beside some Warlord Games items, Black Seas starter kit (I've covered the plastic sprues themself already, with the 3rd rates and Brigs & Frigates) and new resin SPQR range, I have a couple of North Star and Gripping Beasts kit, that should cover several topics of skirmish wargaming and will accompany Dino's new Frostgrave project. So this is something to expect for this and next month.

It wouldn't be a proper weekender without the coverage of what I watched in the meantime. It is a shame that The Mandalorian isn't available in Germany yet, as Disney+ starts with quite a delay here. The trailer and the reviews so far are incredibly well received. The feel of this italo western in space is impressively created, not just by the amazing score that is so Morricone-styled, but the way Jon Favreau did setup the whole thing. And believe me, Jon didn't really catch me with the Iron Man movies or his Chef series.

As we're heading towards the end of the year, some series have returned and started. Among them the new season of Rick & Morty, which is partially available on Netflix and a new HBO series of The Watchmen, that follows the movie, but for my taste is almost unwatchable without the additional info on Youtube by channels like Emergency Awesome or ScreenCrush. In Germany the series can be seen via Sky, as many other HBO productions as well.

I managed to catch up on my movie backlog, across the board from Netflix to Amazon Prime and even the movies. A fun movie to watch while painting or in the train is The Incredible 2, something that you can enjoy with your kids as well. The next movies certainly aren't. I like Clint Eastwood, but The Mule was some waste of time, no real tension and thus the pacing of the 2 hour movie was rather slow. Unfortunately the same goes for the Western, The Sister Brothers. As I was in the mood for a western, I gave it a go on Prime. I have a hard time to see John C. Reilly in a serious role (even Cohen managed to convince me at some point in The Spy), as I was expecting Will Ferrell to pop up every minute or some silly nonsense to happen. Wasn't the only Joaquin Phoenix movie last month, as I watched The Joker. Interesting character study, new approach and well done. It is a good movie, not as good as some argue, but still watchable and certainly not the Superhero flick that some expected. I am still a bit irritated by the fact, that they want to do a second movie, as they strongly - I repeat strongly - pointed out beforehand that this is a stand-alone project and won't be continued. But hey, money and such, what are ethics even worth nowadays?

On Wednesday Netflix released this behemoth of a mob movie, The Irishman. I already wrote about my excitment when it was announced in another weekender, Pizza Rolls, Lego Trucks and the Weekend. I am a huge mafia movie fan, and seeing De Niro, Pacino and Pesci in one movie, directed by Scorsese - oh boy! It is 3h 30m, so get your drinks and snacks ready for this marathon of mob nostalgia. So many incredible cameos, Harvey Keitel, a whole lot of Soprano actors, even Steven van Zandt as a singer/entertainer. Highly recommended if you fancy that type of movie. It was a delight to see these actors all together, with many of them being in their late 70s, unsure if we would have had the chance if they waited longer.

What else? Well, with holidays ahead food becomes a stronger topic again, so that might be covered here as well. There will be the years sum-up, along with a preview to 2020 (incl. a schedule of cons, events and such) and said reviews from above. Enjoy your sunday, take the time to go to a christmas market, grab a glass of mulled wine and a waffle if you can.