Books read - September - December 2015

Sept
Tannhauser: Operation: Night Eagle by Blaine Lee Pardoe
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Tannhauser: Enigma by James Swallow
The art of intrusion: the real stories behind the exploits of Hackers, Intruders & Deceivers by Kevin Mitnick & William L. Simon
Time Life Books: The Old West – The Gamblers by Time Life Books
Indianna Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Annual 2009 by Pedigree
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry
Dust Tactics by Paolo Parente

Oct
Warhammer 40K: Apocalypse (2012) by Jervis Johnson
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Heroes: An Insiders Guide to the Award-Winning Show by Titan Books
Warhammer 40K: Stronghold Assult by Games Workshop
Warhammer 40K: Escalation by Games Workshop
Batman Miniatures Game by Knight Models
Final Jeopardy: man vs machine and the quest to know everything by Stephen Baker
Looking For Alaska by John Green
Cosplay – The Fantasy World of Role Play by Lauren Orsiri
Codex Dark Eldar (5th edition) by Phil Kelly
Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Ignores Helpful Advice by Scott Adams

Nov
Warhammer 40K: Apocalypse Reload by Games Workshop
Batman: A Visual History by Matthew K. Manning
Films of Science Fiction and Fantasy by Baird Searles

Dec
The Greatest Movie Car Chases of All Time by Jesse Crosse
The Disney Book: A Celebration of the World of Disney by Jim Fanning
Warmachine Prime Remix by J Michael Kilmartin, Douglas Seacat, Jason Soles, Bryan Steele, and Matt Wilson
Hordes Primal by Matt Wilson and Jason Soles

desk achieved

With getting things ready downstairs for the holidays, I have been cleaning my desk. Mostly by a process I call sifting. This is where I take the piles of things that get dumped on my desk and sort them into like groups and package them down. My wife also ‘helped’ me with this – but she did it by taking a lot off my desk and strewing it across the room and leaving me to sift and put it back and then she put even more on my desk.

Even with this, I was able to box things down, organize a bit, and clear out a little bit to make the desk look reasonable. It still has a bunch of stuff on it, but at least it looks more cohesive and less hoardish. I will need to move a few things to be able to work on it, but it shouldn’t be too much trouble to do so.

I remain optimistic about being able to start getting things done for next year.

Batman - parking lot

Between Walmart, and Value Village, I have picked up about a dozen vehicles that are a good scale for Batman. Most are 1/43. I also found some school buses at Dollartree for $1.25 each. These are a shade small but should still work. Walmart also had a nice set of vehicles for the Fast and the Furious in the 1/43 scale but at $21 each they were out of my price range. Keep in mind that there are currently no rules to use vehicles in the game. They are mainly there to provide cover, and to help fill out the scenery.


I had been thinking of doing a warehouse table for the Batman Miniature Game – possibly on the docks but similar to what the old Heroclix map used to be. I was recently inspired by this video though and am now thinking about maybe a more urban setting.

While at Chapters, I picked up this Batsignal for $10.99. Knight models has a lasercut one for $8.55 Euros but this one already has the light built in to it. At Dollartree I picked up some police badges to use for a police station like in the video above.

I’m still looking for some letters out of thin wood or foam – so far I haven’t found anything useful at Dollarama or Walmart. I may have to try Michaels.

Figure Painting Total - November

I was finally able to get some Light Armored Troopers for Starship Troopers. The game normally uses power suit CAP troopers as featured in the book but the Light Troopers are the ones from the movie (and also used in Firefly). They are usually very hard to find. I have been watching for ones at a decent price for the last three years.
I had ordered some of the scenery/accessories from the Batman Miniature Game as well but the only one that came in so far was the lasercut wooden van. I did also pick up a few more 1/43 scale vehicles to use with the Batman Miniature Game but they don’t really need painting.
I also got another wagon and horses for use with the RWNN. It looks okay but a simple touch would make it better.

Starship Troopers Mobile Infantry Light Armored Troopers – 20
Batman Miniatures GCPD van – 1
Wagon and horses - 3

November figures bought – 24
November figures painted – 0

Chicks dig the car, right?

Batman miniatures – cars. Scale . 1/43 1/50 I still have a bit of work to clean up my desk in order to make it usable for new projects – one of which is the Batman Miniature Game. Having read the rules, they seem interesting enough to try out. I will need scenery and figures. I can use Heroclix figures for proxies to see if the rules hold up enough to buy some of the stunning figures from Knight Models. I plan on getting a few of the scenery packs to get the scale and work from there.
I did pick up some of the Eaglemoss Batmobiles recently to use for the game. They make over 60 vehicles in this line – from batcycles, to the various standard models, to copters, boats, and villain vehicles. One of the dealers at C4 comicon had some on sale for $12 each or 3 for $30. I checked online to confirm the scale and picked out which ones would work for me.

The listed scale for the Knight Models figures is 35mm or 1:50. The Eaglemoss vehicles are listed as 1:43. 1:43 is a smaller scale than 1:50 so the cars will be a bit bigger than the figures. That should be fine - the slightly larger size should be absorbed by the bases on the figures. They also make a series of vehicles in the same scale for James Bond to fill up some of the streets.

For me, there are only about a dozen vehicles that would match what I think of as the Batmobile and would work for the miniature game.

1 - Batman movie - the first Keaton one. It's not my favorite Batmobile but it does resonate with a lot of people.
2 - Batman Classic TV Movie - the Barris one. It's ingrained in my psyche but I find the red markings a bit too showy.
3 - Batman Begins movie - the tumbler. I'm still not the biggest supporter but a lot of people are familiar with this one.
34 - Arkham Asylum video game - a street rod version. This also has familiarity for many.
40 - The Dark Knight Rises - the Bane tumbler. Same as 3 above but could be repainted black if can get cheaper that that model.
41 - Batman the Return - a beefy model - kind of a similar to the Arkham Asylum model. It has engine pipes, and 6 wheels.
61 - Batman: Noel - a bit more blocky and angular like a step towards the tumbler

There were also some that would also work but are not quite as good a match as the ones above.
8 - The animated series - I like the long sleek line on this one but it is a bit blank.
10 ~ Batman 311 - similar to a sportier Barris one but in blue.
19 ~ Detective Comics 371 - similar to the Barris one but a pale blue.
27 ~ Legends of the Dark Knight 156 - has 2 fins, the face, and red window.
29 ~ Detective comics 362 - It's similar to the TV series one but is all black and has a face on the front.


I ended up picking up three models – 29, 41, and 20 (which hadn't been on my list). 20 is from Batman 652 - it has 3 fins, the face in front, and is all black. I wasn't a fan of it online but it seems a good old version in person. I really would have like to pick up 34 - from the Arkham game or even a Tumbler but they did not have one.

White Dwarf renewal

My six month subscription with White Dwarf is drawing to a close at the end of November. Since they used to need two full months for renewals, I called them at the beginning of Oct to renew but they were unable to add to my subscription at that point.

They could start a completely new subscription, and I could overlap for a month, but the rep was unable to extend my subscription early. He said to call back mid November and that would be enough time to catch it. He was pretty new though so I am hoping that this is a training issue rather than a new policy.

I called today and renewed the White Dwarf - not the Visions. There seemed to be no problems with extending my subscription. Hopefully it is all back to normal again.

Figure painting total - missed Jan and April

T thought that I had posted these already but it looks like I had left them as a draft.
Back in January, I had picked up 3 of the new sets of the Disney Fairies to add more figures to Fairy Meat. There are 7 figures in the set but I will leave one set unpainted.
In April, I had finally picked up the Warhammer: Island of Blood set. I figured that they were coming due for a new Warhammer set, so I figured that I would buy this as a placeholder. Plus it contains a large amount of cool figures as they usually do. As it turned out, this was the perfect time to buy it as the Age of Sigmar came out right afterwards.


Disney Fairies for Fairy Meat – 14
Warhammer – Island of Blood boxed set – 74

Running total 2015 Jan to Apr – figures bought 88, figures painted 0