Reaper Bones Kaladrax

Reaper has a prototype for their new Kaladrax Reborn on their webpage.  It looks pretty awesome.  We all had to make tough decisions about what extras to get from the kickstarter.  I passed on the some that look to be pretty good now but I did select this one so I am stoked that it looks this cool and big.

X-Wing Game on Sale at Target this Week

I saw in my local target ad that they have the Fantasy Flight X-Wing game on sale at Target this week for 30 dollars.  This is similar to the price of many online gaming stores.  Still to expensive for 3 ships for me but Frontline Gamer suggested buying 2 sets to really be able to play the game with X-wings and Tie Fighters then add more of the different ships.  I have not seen any of the expansion packs there so I think you will still need to get those online or at a specialist shop.

Lego Star Wars Hoth Echo Base

Today we are showing off the Lego Star Wars Hoth Echo Base set.  In the states, this set is a Toys R Us exclusive so you can only really get it from them or lego stores.  This certainly limits the options for getting it on sale down from the 89.99 MSRP.  Lego has had a series of Hoth related releases as it is the original trilogies biggest ground battle.  This one is mainly an interior play set as opposed to walls, turrets or hanger doors found in some other recent Hoth sets.

The set comes with 8 minifigures, 2-1B Medical Droid, Bacta Tank Luke, Chewy, R-3PO (Red Protocol Droid), Hoth Han, Hoth Leia plus 2 Snowtroopers and a Tauntaun.  A previous Hoth Base set which was mainly a snow speeder and big hanger door had a white protocol droid K-3P0 who appears in the control center of the base both working and as part of the wreckage during the movie.  I did not remember a red one but I did recently rewatch the movie and saw R-3PO in the background of the hanger as the pilots discussed protecting the transports.  I really like both the injured Luke and Medical Droid.  Chewy, Han, and Leia are pretty similar to those in the previous X-Wing set release.

Here we have the bacta tank and medical bay.   The tank flips down to allow Luke to be placed inside.  I wanted to build one of these for our Home One set as we had made a little medical room with a big window (think medical frigate at the end of empire strikes back).  Now I have just the right parts for it without having to go to bricklink.

Here we have the control room.  This would have actually been a great place to put some different characters instead of Han and Leia like General Rieekan (Officer who tells Han that it is tough to have a price on your head) or the female tracking stuff on the screen who would probably only need a hair swap.  This area actually looks pretty good with 2 small comm stations and the large interface screen.

They then have a tauntaun area and the tauntaun which appeared a few years ago in a different small Hoth set also called like Echo Base.

They also have a little hanger and fueling station.  Not sure what you would fuel here as the area is small for the snowspeeder that was available in the Wampa cave a few years ago.

This is outside of the side with the medical bay and control center.  Hidden blaster storage.  The ladders on top go to this height adjustable platform cargo mover but this should probably be on the other side as it makes more sense in the hanger.

The other side outside has a turret and some flick fire missiles but I think this whole side would be better if the parts had been used either for a power plant or ion cannon .

Overall the set is Ok at best.  Half is pretty neat options for scenes but the more battle side does not really match anything in the movies and seems to be designed specifically to be different from other recent Hoth sets.  I got this set as part of a buy 1 get 1 50% off deal last year which had some problems with stock levels which ended with me just getting this set at a good price.  Adding it to our other white/grey bricks I do hope to put together a better Hoth base for the play room in the future.

Happy Election Day

Everyone in the states have a nice election day.  Go out and vote even if the races are already decided either by general demographics or gerrymandering like my US congressional seat which was the most median seat in the country in 2008 but has since been redraw so far to one side that I do not even know the candidates name for the side that I usually lean.

I am off to vote right now.  Got my history of Math book and bundled up for a wait in line.

Lego Lord of the Rings: Attack at Weathertop

Here we have the first of the Lego Lord of the Rings sets that I have picked up, Attack at Weathertop.  It is one of the middle sized sets priced at about 60 dollars.  Lego has priced these sets very high, similar to Star Wars sets so you pretty much have to be getting them on sale to even get close to what the unlicensed set would be.   I have been waiting for a good sale on some of the smaller sets at some local stores.  Weathertop is really a huge ruin so this is really just a tiny representation.

 

 

 You get 3 members of the fellowship, Frodo with sting and the one ring (my set had 3 of these in it), Merry (only set he is in), and Aragorn.

You also get 2 Ring Wraiths with 2 of the new horses in black which will go nicely with any evil knights is your collection.  The horses have a new pose shown in the picture.  The wraiths are almost all black with a worn clock and no faces.   Put a normal cape on them and a face and you have a nice Return of the Jedi Luke figure.

One of the scenes you have set up is the hobbits cooking with fire on the side of the old fortress while Frodo sleeps.

This ofcourse draws the ring wraiths to them.  Stabbed Frodo has a different face while he waits to be rescued by Aragon on the upper level.

 There is a trap door which sort of drops minifigures down.

Here is the other side bottom.  The set has some nice details.  I like the microfigures as statues but where does that door lead.

These stairs are also pretty cool from the lower to upper level.

Here is the inside that the door leads to.  You have a weapon rack on the left which the model going down the trap door hits.  I have no idea what the back hooks on the right side are supposed to be that think that the inclusion of flick fires on the right is just stupid.  The torch mounts and again microfigures statues are cool.

The set has cool figures and tons of weapons but the size is just a small.  It is a set for are very important set of scenes but it is just to small for such a large place.  You cannot really fit the figures properly on top for battles.  The curved structure makes it pretty hard to expand out of your existing collections.

New Master Blog Roll Coming?

So Adam over at win-warhammer-40k has stated that he is going to try to bring back a master blog roll for the 40K blogs.  This is a good idea as I know that since dropping of the FTW and BOLS rolls my traffic has not be as good.  Now I am wondering from his description if he is trying to go farther than just a blog roll.  He needs to be careful as what he is describing to me sounds to much like reposting RSS feeds which I find quite distasteful.  I personally cut down my feed length when I found a site essentially reposting my entire posts pics and all on their pages.  I know we all play fast and loose with copyright around these parts especially when it is photos of those breaking new items which you will not get sued since generally the photo is of something that has its own copyright so the posted does not have the right to sue you.  It also seems like the bigger they are the more they take off of warseer and other blogs.

The new blog roll got me thinking about the 40k blogosphere ingeneral though.  While we are all constantly pumping out new and interesting things (everybody more so than me), there are probably about 1 million blog posts out their now in the 40K blogosphere.  Now many of these are out of date, or not really great items in the first place (like 99.9% of my posts) but even if only a few percent are good that is still thousands of great projects and information hidden in all the archives.  Even when you see a new blog how often do you dig in their archives.  I have my popular post list on the side but that often gets dominated by Lego stuff since the interest base is much larger (seriously I have lego posts with 10 times the traffic of my best 40K stuff).

Now google is somewhat helpful in finding stuff but we all often get fun with our post titles which my wife tells me the exactly wrong thing to do if you want people to find your posts.  I think one of my best posts in on my Scout Sergeant with Powerfist and Shotgun.  Nothing super fancy just some kitbashing.  If you search for this on google images it is the first one you find but in just normal google it is down the list.  Now a blog roll member search function might be a really cool thing or a better index of good posts.  I have a couple of other models that turned of really well like my Belial and Deathwing Apothecary which are on the popular post list.

Weird, Google has apparently lost all my Page Views

I noticed that my popular posts in the side bar was only showing 1 post today so I was trying to figure out why and it appears as if google lost all my pageviews.  While most of my posts only get 30-50 page views some of the lego stuff was over 7000 views.  Anyone elses page view stats float off into the ether.

Anyway.  Miniature giveaway (Chainmail Dwarves plus a few extras) should be up this week.  Also might update the contents of the Bargain bin as I have some 2ed Blood Bowl Humans available now.

Chainmail Miniatures Trade List

I added a Chainmail Miniatures trade list to my pages on the right.  I know that most people do not have or care about these minis but I have some available and am looking for others.  Maybe you have some and want something else from my bargain bin instead just let me know.

Lego Hobbit Sets

 FBTB.net has posted a list and tons of images of the new Lego Hobbit sets.  Some of the sets look interesting but the rate the Lego is pushing out sets right now it is hard to keep up.  I would probably look at Escape from Mirkwood Spiders and Attack of the Wargs depending on the price points.  Escape from Mirkwood Spiders draws my eye since it appears to have a female elf and I am always on the look out for good female minifigures for my daughter.

I have 2 of the sets for the current Lord of the Rings line (Attack on Weathertop and Mines of Moria) which I could review if anyone is interested.  I am still waiting for the Shelob Attacks set to go on sale.

Reaper Kick Starter Order Locked In

I locked in my Reaper Bones Kickstarter order today.  I was pleasantly surprised with the credit value for the metal Sophie on bike which allowed me along with my initial pledge to get most of what I wanted from the options section without me throwing down more cash now.  Looking at it in the skirmish idea, I was able to add some big models to most of the obvious groups.  Now the long wait till March or I am guessing later.  By then I might have forgotten what I asked for so it will be like a surprise.

What did everyone select?