Upcoming releases for the Hobbit

A whole bunch of (soon to be) releases... Presumably from the latest issue of White Dwarf which I didn't get, but probably will go and buy tomorrow. Just two more weeks before The Hobbit 2 is released. The Hobbit - Desolation of Smaug, IIRC, it is called more precisely.

Barrels out of Bond at GW:s homepage.
Mirkwood Rangers. Looking sleek.

Also soon to be released are: Palace Guard captains, Palace Guard (seen above, the christmas gift-box is not included in the sprue), an updated Thranduil which might be the first "fine"-cast model I buy, normal Beorn, some characters - Laeglaer and his girlfriend from Lost (which I despise, and I can't imagine I am the only one, though most I've talked with seem to love her: "She's super cute - kawaaiii!". Her character in Lost was awful and I have made the typical idiot-thing to confuse her character with the real person...

Movement tray for the 13 dwarves

Two attached trays. Sixteen slots in total. I have listed each dwarf and the symbols of their journey below (they were just crow-bared in, no finesse this time):

Front row, from left to right: Dori (the "fruity" one, Thorin - leader of the expedition, Oin (the hearing-impaired one) and Fili.
Second row, left to right: A barrel too small to go down a river with, but still, a barell to tie in to that whole business. On top of the barrel sits a black-bird (I think it is) because I connect birds with dwarves after reading The Hobbit. Indeed, it was another type of bird in the book, but a bird as small as that one would not have been practical on this tray.
     To the right of the barrel we find Dwalin, the tall dwarf; and by him stands Bofur and Nori.
Third row, left to right: Bifur and Balin, Gloin and Fili. Wedged between them lies a severed warg head.
Back row, left to right: A mushroom ring and the beginning of a dead and squashed spider. Ties in with Mirkwood. Just as the arrows on the barrel does, which I forgot to mention above.
    Besides the mushroom ring we find the youngling Ori with his slingshot and Bombur, the eating-disorderly dwarf.

Left to do is to glue on some minor details and then basecoat. See you in a few days or nights.

Movement tray for Thorin & Company

With regards to rules, you could go two routes: Either, the War of the Ring-standard way, which is to let each and every character give some flair to the formation in form of a little special rule, for example, "Ori's Slingshot" giving the formation the ability to sniper something each turn with a low strength hit - whatever. Or, I could do the boring but (for me) the only way I would ever be able to use them in a game: Just make them a fighty formation, with a maximum of three, possibly four, special rules, all directed to the collective, such as "Dwarves in Diaspora" or "Fight for Our Home" which would do whatever, really. I have decided to do both, just for the fun and hobby of it.
     But first, the formation needs to be constructed.

Don't bother clicking on the image, the picture quality is beyond crap. Not like these sweeties below:

Thank you mr Dryck over at katastrofalaskivomslag.blogspot.se for providing these inspiring images.

The dwarf army was sort of finished. The image is shit, to be frank. Phase two is done, but I'll wait with phase three until I have finished renovation of either the Rohan army or the Rivendell army... I am also finally working with updating my WotR-rules, which I will publish here. If someone can point me in a direction for how-to's to upload PDF:s (and subsequent downloading here on the blog), please, do so!

My bosses (seen above, please note the guy with the nut-cracking man-camel-toe - didn't even know it was possible) have in another schitzofrenic vision decided that "Llama, he's a standup guy, let's promote him!", forgetting all the former fantastic catastrophes I've been semi-responsible for. "Okay", was my answer which I remembered to finish with a rather pertinent question of... "Who will be my work group?"
    "Oh, don't worry about that, just some guys and girls, no worries! And you'll be acting pit-boss, so you don't have to worry about signing documents or getting a payraise. It's settled then, great! See ya' in four!".
    Four weeks, he meant. And left me standing there. I later met my workgroup and presented myself: 16+3+X number of temporaries! How on earth do they think I am competent to deal with this, with my idiot-schedule and overtime? Lucky this is a menial and simple job, IMO...

Lastly, I do not get this Google Plus thing. I tried to comment on mrs Sofie Wandersmissens blog but it was impossible for me to understand how (impossible=I was lazy and had no patience for internetz at the time). I also still have no idea how to become a "Member" on a blog or "Follow", even though I have 31 followers! And what can I then do with this? Is it easier to read and see updates? I don't know...

That's it for tonight!

Dwarf Army renovation - phase two

Just a few images of each formation. After phase three I'll try to catch some sunlight and get better pics - they look very grey at the moment but really aren't that bad.

Restoration of the Dwarven army

Still in phase one. On Saturday I might get going on phase two, inchallah!
    This is not particularly exciting update, but better than nothing, I suppose.

Just kept doing the old BB-basecoat, followed by a grey-brown wash followed by another darker wash.

Noticed I missed painting the severed troll-head, so that object will get a few lick of paints as well. I really like the Grim Hammerers-models, they are ace! And I am feeling very sorry for the WHFB:ers that have to settle with WHFB dwarfs...

These have nothing to do with me, this blog or 

anything remotely WotR:y...

A-Z Blogger Book Survey

Phew, blogger went berserk just there... but everything's under semi-control now (thought I'd lost everything I just typed! A sort of late 1990's problem... ). Just thought I would like to take up on my promise to post this A-Z Blogger Book Survey, which I found on mr Laughing Ferrets blog.
     Now it is my turn, late as always.

Now, you may wonder what this lipstick-applicationist extraordinaire above is doing on post like this, but rest assured and please continue reading and all shall be illuminated.

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Author you've read the most books from: Ivar Lo Johansson. Just an honest answer and not an answer I am especially proud of, not that I'm ashamed of it. It's just that he's not especially "hot" right now - and to make matters worse, his work's been hijacked by the Leftists a loooong time ago, calling him a "blue collar novelist" or something the like...

Best sequel ever: Don't really like the idea of sequels, but I looked forward very much to J.K. Rowlings last Harry Potter book. So the answer is: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows.

Currently reading: One of H.P. Lovecrafts many short stories. They are on Antarctic and everything's spooky, which pretty much sums up the story. This one, however, is answering a lot of questions, in comparison to many other stories by this man.

George Clooney coffee: Smug as fuck!.

Drink of choice whilst reading: A cup of pretentious strong coffee made with the help of the good old Gaggia.

 

E-reader or physical book: In theory, e-reader, but I do not own one so I force myself to read PDF:s on my stationary computer, fooling myself to believe I am just as kewl as the kindle-readers or any apple-computer-stuff-owner.

    Of course physical books are great, they smell nice, have pieces of breadcrumbs in them and are better in every way, but when moving from one place to another, the carrying of books have gotten old, IMO.

Fictional character you would probably have dated in high school: Easy. Dolores Haze. Without a fucking doubt. The elegant "wordplay" is of course a hint to my motivation of picking her here...

Glad you gave this book a chance: L'élégance du hérisson, by Muriel Barbery. If you are ever so slightly sentimental, you should probably too...

Hidden book gem: ... hm... got to be Under the Raspberry-tree, which is a weird title for a book. A series of short stories, IIRC - read it at least 15 years ago. Very good indeed, by an author I give perhaps one or two rats-asses about: Margareta Sarri.

Important moment in your book life: Brothers Karamazov. I especially like typing this because Dostojevskij is having some sort of anti-renaisannce in some cultural spheres here in the Cold North - he's been bashed on radio and in some journals as well as MSM-papers' culture-sections. I suppose he's an anti-revolutionist, and "they" won't stand it! "They" being the ever-present "leftists". Heheheh...

Just finished: Open City, by Teju Cole. Just re-read it, a very good read indeed.

Kind of book you won't read: Crime-stories or "murder-porn" as it's been known as in some circuits.

Longest book you've read: Don't know, probably Karamazov Brothers... Or The Lord of the Rings, since it was originally meant to be just one tome. I would have liked it if it had stayed that way, especially considering the theme of this blog...

Number of bookcases you own: Just the one. I've put a ban on buying more books until I can find a bigger place. But this bookshelf happens to be abundantly filled.

One book you've read multiple times: Robinson Crusoe, O-Zone, Lord of the Rings, most of Jack London's production etc etc. A good book can be read around 9-10 times in a life, as the old axiom says.
     And not to mention another "one book" I've read multiple times - everything about captain Hornblower:

Preferred place to read: If I say breadcrumbs, you say: Bed! In the bed (not bead) is the answer to this one.

Three of your all-time favorite books: There are too many, but I'll give it a go: Wolf Larsen, O-Zone, Karamazov Brothers, the butterfly collector's most known book (one of characters can be seen in this post), first 25% of Metro 2033 by Dmitri Gluchovskij, most things written by mr Lars Gustafsson and so on...

Unapologetic fanboy for: J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter-books as well as the quite different author Paul Theroux... (different in comparison to J.K. Rowling).

Paul Theroux, "looking naturally cool and author:y"

Worst bookish habit: Eating and reading... the number of fat-spills and residual food in my books is getting silly. I have stopped doing this after getting a book back which I loaned a friend, and found that he'd been eating whilst reading my book. Since then I made a 180.

X marks the spot - Start at the top left of your bookshelf and pick the 27th book: V.S. Naipaul's A House for mr Biswas. A depressing story.

Your latest book purchase: I have banned myself to buy anymore, but I say this: It was a manga-story about a 15 year old girl that's investing waaay to much time in otome-games. A bit strange, the whole affair, especially me buying the book...

Zzz snatcher book (the last book that kept you up waaay too late): None, I read very Preussian and efficient: With clear, big eyes, ambient music to dampen and drown my neighbours arguing/knifing each other. I allocate my reading time very efficient as I do my sleep time.*'

These are not my eyes, they belong to another blogger...

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That's it, thank you for your time, and thank you internet for providing a wide range of images to soften up this post. Goodnight one and all!

*) Don't really know about the grammar in this sentence...

Revampation of Dwarf Holds

In my ongoing effort to freshen up - according to my original plans, as devised in the interesting year of 2008 - all my armies of War of the Ring, it is now time for the dwarves. Interestingly enough, the spelling of dwarwes is now dwarves... two years ago, search engines corrected me for typing dwarves and pointed at their idea of correct spelling of these fantasy creatures, which of course was dwarwes. Games Workshop's idea of how to spell it is not interesting. So, today we shall spell it "dwarves", since I am such a lame-@ss conformist (just watched the Goth-kids-episode of South Park).

Above we can see parts of the army, consisting in total of around 150-160 models, or 19 infantry movement trays plus one cavalry tray (for the ballista) and a compound-base with a diameter of 60mm, with slots for three infantry models, which of course are the King's Champion and his two banner-bearer bros.
    I am toying with a mixed hero formation of two companies for the thirteen companions. Rules would be fun to make, so perhaps I'll post them here. Also, finally learned how to make a PDF... the solution's spelled "Open Office". Yay for me...

The first colours applied on trays and bases are Coat d'Arms' 112 Bone (Bleached Bone). Later a wash of 120 Hairy Brown and Citadel's Codex Grey was added. And lastly a dark wash consisting of CdA's 102 Black with some residual paint that was stuck in my paint container, all in an ongoing effort to make my hobby harder than it is, hehehe... (not done on purpose, if anyone missed my bad internet-irony).

Personal ramblings - this is a blog about hobby and things related to my hobby, and personal life tend to affect how said hobby is carried out! Hence the large piece of text below...

Life's been interesting these last days... a little bit of this and that. A sweet meeting with a sweet, young lass at a party, where the mean age was (almost) frighteningly low, lucky I was there to drag the mean up a bit...
    After watching Elysium, I now know why the young creature fell for me.
    After watching Elysium, I am currently annoyed with the whole affair presented in that garbage movie - which still was a great production and highly entertaining, though a bit boring with all the action and fights, but that's the kind of movie it is, so I can't fault it for that: No, the idiot message that idiots in this country will take with them are of course the silly, and faulty, parallells of how evil all of the indigenous population in Euroland are and how we should "save" the whole world.
    Spoiler alert: Elysium turns into a mini-Earth a few years after the "revolution" and looks exactly like L.A., before come crashing down on Earth in an enormous ball of fire and death. Great message, but this message, and its natural consequences are all too well-known for us here in Sweden - at least us living in the banlieus/förorter/"projects". The New Sweden has started its descent, or crash more correctly, and is already on fire - I just have to look out of my window during weekends to see it for myself.

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Works been frustrating as usual, but despite being heavily understaffed, it's been not overly tough on my temper and body, so it feels well. It can change in an instant, so I'm still on the backfoot.
    Also considering to be my own man for at least a half-serious try, end of 2014, when it seems inevitable that I'll get laid off. Or fired, more like it...
     I had some negotiation practice* with my boss, related to the annual salary-talks (google translate says: "wage bargaining", if anyone has a problem understand what "salary-talk" means... salad-talks... ), it went so-so, as expected, but I managed to convey the message of how arbitrary their view on my work has always been. This year it was praise and just a single, totally faulty critique. There are valid critique to be placed on how I do my work, but the pace isn't a problem, on the contrary: I am super-efficient. But still, this was their only message: Pick up the pace, or else... I suggested to them that perhaps they are confusing me with someone else. Sour faces was the only answer given.


*) My negotiation skills are extremely low. Lower than I care to confess!

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Tomorrow after work I'll probably do the book-thingie-post that a lot of bloggers have already done, you know, the Bloggers A-Z of Books, or something like it. Books are always fun!