Recasts Received!

I got the box from the last post in the mail and I am not completely disappointed.

The Thunderwolves are resin recasts of the plastic kit but are pretty good quality. It is hard to tell if any bits are missing, as they came clipped from the sprues in a bag, but it all looks like it is there. It looks like they will go together the same as the plastic kit and once painted no one will know the difference. I really only wanted one wolf to round out my collection. Single wolves go for $14-$18 on eBay but I would not have gotten my choice of extra bits. For a little over twice the price of an eBay Thunderwolf, I got three times the minis (and bits!).

The Primaris Psyker was a real surprise in the he was metal. I was shocked and thought he was legit GW metal but the hastily cleaned mold lines lets me know that this is a recast. As much as we love to rib GW about letting garbage minis out of their warehouses that need extensive cleaning before they can be used, they at least try not to send actual garbage out. Regardless, I like metal more than resin and on a mini that has a staff, I am going to have fewer breaks because of it. I was sad when I realized that this mini was so close to retail, but the metal makes up for it.

The last mini that I am going to write about is the Emperor's Children Sonic Dreadnought. I love this mini and have wanted it for ages. It also rounds out my Cult Dreadnought/Helbrute project. I got it with Chainfist and Blastmaster. While there are no real rules for this wargear, I will either fudge it a little in casual games or use it as a proxy for Power Fist and Las Cannon.

Overall, some of the prices were a little high and there is always some uncertainty in dealing with a China recaster and not using Paypal. The guy that I emailed with said he would send a tracking number but never did and never cared to explain. It did not take the 8-16 weeks that it can sometimes take. Overall it is a pretty neutral experience.

Recasts Revisited

The frenzy over Fallout 4 has died down a bit and I can start to focus on the real hobby of 40k again.

To get me excited about painting, I used some spare cash from X-mas bonus to put in an order to the newly renamed Yoymart, Modelocenter. I put in two orders into Yoymart and was mostly satisfied. They did send me the wrong mini once. It was a giant pain talking to someone with broken English during a customer service issue. They eventually sent the correct mini but I had to pay for it.

As far as quality, they are about where you would expect for recasts. Not quite as good as metal but almost on par with Finecast. They take a lot of cleanup and care but when painted are indistinguishable from legit minis.

The prices are all under what GW and FW are but some are close. The Emperor's Children Dreadnought body goes for 30 pounds ($43 USD) and Modelocenter only had it for $30. Not a great discount but acceptable. Tot total for the GW minis would have been $117.50 and $194.64 for the Forge World stuff for a total of $312.14 retail. That is about 35% off. Again not great and I wish I had done this math beforehand.

Really it is not so bad. I probably could have gotten all of these things for the same or better price on Bartertown, but waiting for what I want to be offered stinks and things are rarely in good condition. This is an acceptable discount for being able to order what I want and get it in new condition.

I took this opportunity to order some minis that I have never found at a good price like Primaris Psyker (not a stellar discount and perhaps a bad purchace) and Crypteks. I piked up the DE Sslyth for a Slaanesh Chaos Lord conversion later. I only need one more Thunderwolf for the foam, but will maybe convert the other two.

I have always wanted Tau Remora fighters. They have been on the short list for every Yoymart order and I finally pulled the trigger. I used to poo poo the Tetras until I faced them. They are highly mobile and highly resistant markerlight vehicles. It is insane not to take them with Tau. They are both going to look amazing in the color scheme that I have chosen to repaint my Tau in.

Just saw Star Wars

Let me start by saying that I am not going to spoil anything. 

I just got out of seeing Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens and made myself the celebratory dinner you see before you (Sarnac Caramel Porter not pictures). It is going to take me a while and many subsequent viewing to fully digest it (the movie not the food). In the true since of this blog, I am going to say two to three things that I liked and two to three things that I didn't like. 

The cinematics are great for the long shots, there are a number of callbacks and fan-service and lots and a very strong female protagonist. There are lots of sweeping long shots of exotic places that Star Wars may not be particularly renown for but were certainly impactful. Scattered about are little things that will make fans of the original three films happy. They are all pretty obvious but made me laugh. The heroin don't need no man to save her and kicks all the butt while the boys are looking for their glasses on the ground. Finally, holy crap holy OMG WTF! Why are you reading this and not watching it?!?!?!?

Final Fallout 4 Countdown

I am doing some of the final work on my computer getting it ready for Fallout 4. Part of that is checking how my rig fairs against the recommended system requirements. I wanted to build a computer with the expressed goal of playing Fallout 4 and bought the best computer that Dell could build with few exceptions. The system requirements were not out until very recently.

I did some checking and my system stacks up pretty well. I should be able run Fallout at 1920x1810 pretty easily. That is good because that is about the highest resolution that my poor old eyes can take.

The main bottleneck is my GPU which is sad because I have a pretty sweet GForce GTX 960. There is a gaming version with twice the memory. In retrospect, I wish I could have bought the stock GPU and then upgraded to the Geforce 960 4GB later. I think that this upgrade will have to happen eventually to play upcoming games.

My painting station and computer station is in the basement and the light down here is not good. There are several fluorescent bulbs handing that provide harsh light. When I turn them off, I can't see my keyboard or what is on my desk. To solve this, I bought a $10 USB light with a dimmer and used an old USB extension cord. I positioned the light in such a way that it casts light on my keyboard. Pretty cheep solution. It balances pretty well with half of the keyboard on the USB extention and the other half on my painting station.

Fallout Enbargo

The only thing that I want for x-mas

Up until now, my habit is to look for Fallout news and videos every day. I have been reading Reddit habitually as well as the boring official stuff from Bethesda. Until earlier this week, I would have said that there were few people that better informed than I in Fallout news.

There were some leaked photos from a Spanish gamer this week and that was the first unofficial leak. Most of the pics were hi-res and of things like Dogmeat or buildings. I didn't think that anything could be spoiled this soon but I was wrong.

Soon after that leak came many more. I watched a few videos an immediately ran into quest spoilers. In an effort to play Fallout 4 unspoiled, I have sworn off any Fallout news until after the game drops.

Played a game, short update, rant

Have done zero painting since the cultists. Sorry, Greg. I am not painting my stuff either.

What I have been doing is playing lots of X-wing. Mostly with my buddy Charles who I got into the game but also once with a very good player Dan. For the most part, I have been having a great time. The games are fast (about an hour per 100 points) and brutal. 

Pipboy? Schmipboy!

I did not find out about the Pipboy Edition of Fallout 4 until long after it was sold out and on eBay for 3 times the price. I love the idea that I'll be able to use my mobile device as a second screen but am not going to go out and drop $500 on a giant plastic Pipboy. Instead, they are a myriad of iPhone holders out there and a few just for forearms. 

I picked this up for $9 shipped from China and love it. It fits my giant iPhone 6 Plus perfectly. What I like most about it is that the phone attaches to the arm thing with Velcro so I can position it at an angle that is easy for me to read on the fly and type on. 

This month is killing me. I think we are 26 days out now and each one is grinding by. The worst are my days off. At least at work things fly by but when I am at home I have all the time in the world to think about Fallout 4 and obsess over every SPECIAL video and perk analysis.