Ish

“Be excellent to each other and party on, dudes.”

So, in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, we see that in the future year of 2688 A.D. everyone lives in an idyllic utopia inspired by the music of the band Wyld Stallyns. It’s currently 2019 A.D. and one of the most popular memes on social media and pop culture is that of “St. Keanu.” Extolling Keanu Reeves for his humble personality, insightful interviews, and general, all-round sheer niceness. (And looking damn fine in a well tailored suit.) A lot of cultural drift can happen in 669 years... Maybe, just maybe, the future San Dimas isn’t that impossible?

[Conan] shrugged his shoulders. "I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. “I know not, nor do I care. “Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content." —Robert E. Howard, ‘Queen of the Black Coast,’ Weird Tales 235 (May 1934) [emphasis added]

“Live forever or die trying!” That’s my motto.

Ever realize that anyone of us – even you –could be an immortal... we just haven’t found it out yet?

Just another Warhammer 40,000 miniature inspired by classic Heavy Metal album covers...

Don’t you go and research the issue! I’m trying to whinge and complain, dammit. Having full and complete access to facts doesn’t help me. Harrumph.

The Crown Series 3, continues to be top form, even after the change over of almost the entire cast. Complete with a brilliant bit of “lampshade hanging” in the season’s cold open as the older Queen Elizabeth II (Olivia Colman) compares the new postage stamp with her portrait on it to the older stamps with a young Elizabeth II (Claire Foy) on them. As with series one and two, The Crown probably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But for a politics wonk, history nerd, Anglophile who loves a good dramatic character study (wit a bit of dry sarcasm and understated snark thrown in) this show is like tailor made for me. ”Aberfan” was probably the best episode of series three, possibly one of the best in the series to date. Although, I have to admit, “Tywysog Cymru” did a remarkable job of redeeming Prince Charles by showing him as the sensitive-but-witty young man he was always considered before his divorce became tabloid fodder decades later. Hard to give The Crown an objective rating. I love it, but I guess I can see why others wouldn’t...

Now that they’ve said this, I find myself a lightly disappointed they put a plasma pistol in his hand instead of going with the original artwork’s “casually wiping some blood of my chin” pose. I know everyone wants Bigger Than Life Dynamic Action Pose! in their models, but sometimes something more understated works too.

I’ve always been interested in all the gadgets, doodads, and techniques people use in our hobby... Which leads down all sorts of rabbit holes if you spend enough time in book stores, libraries, and the interwebs. As I recall, I stumbled across these doohickeys via my uncle and grandfather, who were huge into R/C airplanes and spent the better part of the Nineties working on a painstakingly detailed scale replica of my grandfather’s WWII Hellcat. They used a doohickey like the above for painting all the bits and bobs that would go into the cockpit. But, I digress. I didn’t remember what it was called, but if you throw enough search queries at Google, it eventually gives you what you want. It’s actually kind of weird how little cross-pollination there is, these days, between the wargaming hobby and model railroaders, model car makers, R/C plane guys, etc. Seriously, spend some time poking around in a really good, dedicated model train shop some day... They’ve got gadgets and gizmos that do things for making terrain types or model effects that gamers tend to consider impossible... and do it easily. I recall a bolter and chainsword thread years ago where someone went to incredibly complex lengths to add LED headlights and a spotlight to his Land Raider. He was bread boarding his own circuits from scratch, soldering bitz to bobs, and all sorts of nonsense. He probably could bought a kit for it at a train shop for $15...

Don’t be all 😭 about it. It’s just too many overlapping commitments like hair cuts, skating lessons, and meetings. Too many places for the kids to be simultaneously, too few parents to get them there solo.

Won’t be able to make it tonight, family stuff.

—White Dwarf (Vol. 1) #241, January 2000. O_o,

It's an Escalation Campaign, Pax. The whole point of escalation campaigns isn't to be competitive. The goal is too learn the game, offer a bit of an incentive to finally slap some paint on that model that's been sitting on the table for months, and grow into a full army. You'll get your 4,500 in the final week(s), same as everybody else.

Would something like this work? Clip the larger part of the mini to the clip, stick it in the rack, and then use your good hand to hold the smaller bit your gluing on... For trimming and cleaning, you should be able to rotate these with your injured hand without putting too much pressure on your thumb.

Blu Tack on an old paint pot or an empty pop bottle?

I’d have liked to have seen a rattle can of black added to the test.

Weird that they have different bases sizes...

I remember there being caps, but it’s been forever since I looked at a WHFB rulebook.

My WHFB 8th Edition Empire army had a massive 100-man infantry block of spearmen, plus their supporting detachments of handgunners and halberdiers; Next to them was a 50-man block of greatswords, plus their supporting handgunners and halberdiers; then there was the big, long line of archers behind them... and the long, thin line of skirmishing archers in front of them. Not one cavalry model in the entire army.

Heck, just replace the HQ models with vampires. Use your existing elves and rat-men as the rank-and-file, call’em “hypnotized minions.”

“C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre: c'est de la folie.” —Gen. Pierre Bosquet, witnessing the charge of the Light Brigade

Have you considered Frostgrave or Saga? Great ways to indulge in ADMCD (Attention Deficit Miniature Collecting Disorder) as you only need 12-20 models for a Frostgrave band and rarely need more than 60 for a Saga skirmish army.

It's not unusually for GW to include more bases than there are models in a box. The standard infantry rounds are manufactured four bases to a sprue, so if the box set contains models that are a multiple of five, you'll usually end up with one or two extra. Which is better than one or two short... although that will happen every now and again too. In all my years of gaming, I've never had any problems phoning up GW Customer Service -- 1-800-394-GAME, yes I have it memorized -- to request some extra bases when they've been missing from a box. They usually show up in the mail within a week.