Looking back on August 2020

I ordered Knightmare Miniatures retro-style miniatures through Battlefield Berlin in April and after a lot of reminding and pushing, they finally managed to send the few casts to Berlin and it was quickly forwarded to me. I am aware of the situation in Spain and that it is niché, but seriously, 4 months and that amount of pro-activity necessary ... annoying.

The few models will be added to my greater Realm of Chaos collection, along with the bat swarms by Reaper and Masquerade to be included in the small undead warband.

I came across a few wood elves at a reasonable price, and as I already have a few Glade Riders and mounted general, thought that would be a nice small warband and fitting antagonist to the beastmen. Just needed a few bowmen and the mage on warhawk (I really, really like that model), both of which I picked up on eBay.

Towards the end of the month I was slowed down a bit, due to a hand injury, and I am still recovering from this. So not really painting and/or building anything for the last few days. But the "lost" issue of White Dwarf #454 arrived at my house, as did a few days later the most recent issue #455. Will dive into them in the next days.

The major part of the summer project is done and the main reason it is not completely done (missing the 2 extra-miniatures to fulfil the 18 miniature goal of the challenge) is above mentioned hand injury. But I am working on a bit of extra content, and to give you an idea of the making of, see below.

I managed to get my hands on the Lego Technic 42094 Tracked Loader with a very nice price tag. It's my first Lego vehicle with tracks and it even comes with a b variant! As I already have a few trucks here, I was looking into some construction vehicles (they simply don't have enough and the prices for the older kits are insane). Built that one, just the way the manufacturer designed it. Decent kit, the loaders grip could be a bit more stury, and I think about replacing it with a shovel. We'll see.

After turning the 42108 Mobile Crane into a Roll-Off Truck MOC by M_Longer I was looking what I could do with the 42098 Car Transporter. Initially I wanted to build something like the flatbed truck, but thought a transport for the construction vehicles would be a better fit, so I went with the Time-HH MOC of a Heavy Duty Truck. I rebuild the mobile crane into it's original model in the meantime and have to say, such a bad design. The crane function is nice, but the model easily tipps and is flimsy, as it bends and starts to loose its connection to the ground while being played with.

Anyhow, I have a great little helper, assisting me while dismantling or sorting parts.

Building lego and a few rainy days are a great excuse to catch up on some things from my backlog.

Netflix - Tyler Rake: Extraction 5/10, generic action flick, a lot of cliches and irritating use of multi-language dialogue. Very intense "on shot" action scene, I was going in for this for the reason to get some ideas and input for modern combat scenarios, but well, this is more like a FPS movie...

Raised by Wolves is looking interestingly, and starts by the end of the week. Produced by Ridley Scott and very impressive pictures so far.

Ted Lasso picked up the NBC Premiere League spots as a full series. Light hearted fun, on some parts a bit strong on the feelings, but I like Jason Surdeikis as an American Football coach managing a british Soccer team.

I went through the 4th to 6th season of Voyager quite quickly. In S4 we finally meet 7of9 ... but some of the episodes ... oh boy, pure filler material. But I finally made it to S6, just a bit sad that we only saw so much of the Hirogen. But they will return for two further episodes until the finale. Beyond that, quite a bit of Borg story line.

As for Star Trek, Lower Decks started in August, and it is quite fun. An animated series on the support crew of one of the least important ships of Starfleet, the U.S.S. Cerritos. Among the producing team is the head writer for Rick & Morty.

An American Pickle - 5/10, didn't expect much from a Seth Rogen Movie, but at least some cheap laughs. Didn't even provide that.

I think I need to pick up Ozark again and there is the latest episode of Krauthorn.

Other than that, I am looking forward to September and the opportunities it brings.