Disney trip 2016 - day 7 - The Animal Kingdom - part 2

Cheryl, Gee, and I rode the Expedition Everest. It way very cool. The Wilderness Explorer badge station near there was very hard to find.

Cheryl and the kids left before us. They got lost for a bit on the way out. Shan waited around for me and I finished up a few more badges.
We checked in at the Wilderness Explorer Station on the way out. I guess they had seen me working away at them. I didn't get them all but they made me an honorary Senior Explorer.

We had supper back at the resort and made it back to the pack for the night show. It was the Jungle Book - partially projected on water sprays and singing and dancing Bollywood-style, followed by fire dancers,

It could have been due to the rain, but we didn't think that it was as good as Fantasmic,

On the way out, we caught a few vignettes projected on the giant Tree of Life. We would have stayed a bit longer and watched more of them but the kids were getting tired.

Disney Trip 2016 - day 7 - The Animal Kingdom - part 1

On the Saturday we got up early for the ride to The Animated Kingdom. I took the new camera that we got from cashing in Air Miles points. We had just got it before we left but the safari was a rare chance to use it. Even though I haven't really got comfortable with it.
Gee used my regular camera on the safari while I used the new one.

We started in Africa at the Harambe Wildlife Reserve. It wasn't high on my list of attractions but it was quite good.

Finishing that, we went on the Gorilla Walk. During the walk I picked up a Wilderness Explorer book from Jocelynne, a Troop Leader. There were many spots along the park to answer questions or do events to get stickers. While the kids weren't interested, it harkened back to my Boy Scout days and I did as many as I could throughout the day, much to my wife's chagrin.

We had lunch at the Yak & Yeti - a mix of Indian and Asian foods.

Next on our visit was the Maharajah Jungle Trek to see the tigers. The bats and the komodo dragons were away at the vet.

We did the It's Not Easy to be a Bug Show. Again, the large spiders were not announced with enough warning for Gee. It was hard to find the badge coming out of that one. It was tucked in on the path out from the show.

We worked our way around Dinoland USA. It's built up like an old-time Dino-themed amusement park. We didn't do any of the rides but I had to go into the Dig area to get the badge.
It rained heavily a few times that day. We did remember to bring the Dollarama ponchos. A few people asked if we were Canadians - seeing the maple leafs. Our response - "Maybe".

New 40K

Games Workshop just announced that there will soon be a new edition of Warhammer 40,000 released and that it will be incompatible with the current codices.
I only need three current codices – Imperial Agents, Dark Angels, and Tau. I am missing several of the supplements though. I am currently reading through the old codices – having just finished Dark Angles, and Tau from the sixth edition.

It sounds very similar to what they did with the Warhammer game, where they had a big ‘end of days’ event spread across a few books, coinciding with large figure releases, and then wiped out the old ruleset and army books and started fresh with Age of Sigmar.
I wasn’t active in Warhammer at the time, so I didn’t get the end times books or models, and didn’t make the jump to the new system. I would have to chase down the end times books and a lot of the army lists from the last few editions to complete the sets.
I had liked the narrative that had been building in the old Warhammer world and don’t really have any ties to the new one. For me, it was a very good point to make a clean break.

I am closely tied to the Warhammer 40,000 narrative, from the early days of Rouge Trader, all the way through the grim dark present future, with the additions of the Tyranids, Dark Eldar, Tau, and Necrons, as well as the loss of the Dwarves along the way. A lot of fine details have modified along the way, examples being the Genestealers/Tyranids, the Space Wolves/Dark Angels history, the Chaos gods. A lot of the big picture has stayed the same.
Depending on how much it changes, this could be the last of my placeholder sets. It remains seen to see if that is because we part ways or if the new set will be a clean start.
The nice thing about having all the sets along way is that I can always go back and play with the rules from my favorite edition.

Figure Painting total - March 2017

With the line being discontinued, I made a mad scramble to pick up a bunch of Marvel Universe miniatures as well as some of the Spider-Man version of the Batman Miniatures game that could also be used in Marvel Universe.

SM/MU Spider-Man – 1
SM/MU Daredevil – 1
SM/MU – Green Goblin -1
MU – Avengers starter – 4
MU – X-Men starter – 4
MU – Brotherhood of Evil Mutants starter – 4
MU – Guardians starter – 4
MU – Dark Avengers starter – 4
MU – Black Panther - 1
MU – Groot – 1
MU – Sabretooth – 1
MU – Hawkeye – 1
MU – Vision – 1
MU – Dr. Doom – 1
MU – Gambit – 1
BM – Objectives Game Markers - 4


Mar figures bought - 34, figures painted – 0

Running total 2017 – figures bought 67, figures painted 0

Disney Trip 2016 - day 6 - Hollywood Studios - part 2

The kids and I posed in the handprints in front of Mann's Chinese Theatre.

We were unable to get seats for the Sci-Fi Drive In theatre.

We did take pictures with the speederbike and then caught some of the Jedi training before riding the Star Tours. It was good to finally ride it after all these years.
I'm the gift shop I picked up a Medal of Yavin. It's not the Master Replica's one, but it's the closest I will come to having one.

Next we popped into the Launch Bay to see Star Wars props and reproductions. I took many photos of a reproduction Rey outfit and a Dejerik table.

We walked around some more and then made it over to the Fantasmic show. They project images on water/mist as well as have live action - including a wonderful Malificent dragon.

We took a few more shots on the way out and then headed back to the room early. The park closes early. It's timed so you can either see Fantasmic or the park's fireworks.

We looked around the arcade back at the resort and got to bed early for the early day tomorrow.

Disney Trip 2016 - day 6 - Hollywood Studios - part 1

On the Friday we went to Hollywood Studios. I was randomly selected again to go through the metal detectors. We made our way around to the Muppet side.
We had breakfast tickets to Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano. The brunch was the grouper for D3 and I with a lovely desert. The meal here was $45 each and gave us tickets to the Fantasmic fireworks show.

We had killed some time in the Muppet gift shop already and, after the brunch we went to Muppet Vision 3D. The wait was about 10 minutes.

We had a fast pass for the Indiana Jones Stunt Show.

We made our way back to the main stage in time for the March of The First Order.

We then walked in to see Walt Disney - One Man's Dream. They had a bunch of props and displays to see before the show and we saw the rest of them afterward. I took shots of the Rocketeer jetpack, a helmet from Tron, as well as the dioramas.

We then made our way over to the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Cheryl, Gaby, and I rode. It was good. At the gift shop I bought a door sign and a robe.

We went in to the Pixar section but did not go on any rides.

Marvel Universe Miniature Game

I’m late to the party with this one. I had been looking at it but hadn’t bought any when it was cancelled. Since then, there has been a mad flurry on the figures and I have been able to order a bunch of the figures I wanted but there are still about half of the figures from the line that I haven’t been able to get.

It doesn’t help that the figures are about $25-$30 each with the exchange. Since I play Games Workshop games though, the price doesn’t shock me as much as it should. For that price, it would be cheaper to get action figures and upscale the game to fit. The scale wouldn’t be too outrageous as it’s supposed to fit on a 3 foot by 3 foot board so a 9’ by 9’ or 10’ by 10’ area would work. It could probably be a tighter game on an 8’ by 8’ board. Not too bad for a convention but a much too big for my game room.

I had been looking at trying the system by getting the DC Universe Trinity set but the news of the cancellation changed my timeline on that. With a flurry of purchases from four different online stores, I was able to get all 5 of the Marvel Universe starter sets and a bunch of the individual figures I wanted.
I am still missing 3 key figures, 5 figures that I’m interested in, and 9 figures that I don’t care as much about but would finish the sets. There would also be 3 sets of Marvel Legends – which would be the Superior Spider-Man, Goblin Cult, and Spider Robots gangs for use with the Batman Miniature Game rules. I am not overly looking to get those but would pick them up if found cheaply.

So, after spending about $500, I have 28 of the 53 figures total ordered – but that total includes 12 from the Legends starters that I’m not really interested in. I also have ordered all three token sets but have not been able to get the spray template. There are also some unreleased figures that have cards but not miniatures. For those, and the ones I cannot find, I can always use Heroclix figures.