[unofficial weekender] Making it work

[zoidpinhead 13000xp 0]

there’s 20 faction ?

Yes.  KoW 4th has reduced from 28 to 20 main factions.  You can still play all of the old factions, they are just options within one of the main lists.  It looks like there is a plan to create variant lists for all of the main factions so I guess we’ll get at least 40 distinct army variations eventually.

Still doesn’t make choosing one any easier.  I’ve also picked up a couple of the older starter sets.  They are great value, especially when on sale or second hand.

[limburger 22537xp 1]

I’ve never counted the factions, but I thought there were less ?
Someone really should list them all …

I’m tempted to say all of Mantics’ stuff is great value.
Some of the initial Ambush boxes most definitely were (the Goblin one comes to mind).

[sundancer 44707xp 2]

20 factions feels a bit overkill but more chose is better I guess?

I did some 1:1 terrain today. A small sofa for the teenager. God I hate assembly of furniture.

[zoidpinhead 13000xp 1]

I did some 1:1 terrain today. A small sofa for the teenager. God I hate assembly of furniture.

It is an arse isn’t it.  Does anyone like doing it?  Still, the happy glow of their smiling face is all the reward anyone needs I’m sure.

20 factions feels a bit overkill but more chose is better I guess?

There were around 20 main factions in Warhammer Fantasy before GeeDub double tapped it down a back alley.  Google tells me that Warhammer: Total War 3 had 96 playable sub-factions.  Google is prone to exagerations though 😀

Someone really should list them all …

Mantic have 19 of the factions listed on their website and also in the shop.  The one they don’t list is Kingdoms of Men which they don’t make any specific minis for.

I think their minis are great value too – especially if you wait for their deals or special events.  I’m on a budget and in a hurry so many of mine are second hand or on sale from a FLGS.  My Google-Fu is pretty strong and some really took some searching for.  The older army boxes and starter sets are great value at the moment.  Good discounts online – business daddy particularly.

[limburger]

GW doesn’t really support any faction that isn’t spacemarine or chaos.
Orks have been reduced to being green skinned imperial guard.

They’ve done the same to their fantasy 40k factions.
(I really wanted those spider cavalry gobbos damn it … )

Remember when Ork klans were an actual thing ?
The Armageddon box barely mentions anything about Orks … despite it being spacemarines vs Orks.
You’d think they’d get equal time in the spotlight, but it reads like Imperial propaganda with anything Ork barely getting a line or two.

Meanwhile Mantic are refreshing entire factions with more than a few token models. Forces of Nature getting a full army refresh is great. And the best thing is that it doesn’t feel like you have to buy Mantic models. That kind of freedom is both great and scary.

//
I think I’ve found the ultimate rig for simulators :

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 5 days ago by limburger.

[grantinvanman 10417xp 0]

Hard to hobby when the weather is perfect: did a 400km ride today, nearly zero wind, grabbed a t-shirt at the next town HD shop, saw some old friends, and home. 120kmh with the smell of fields made for a great day! I think rain is back next week, until then I’ll keep putting mileage on my bikes.

 

Also, glad I didn’t keep going to Edmonton, as they apparently experienced a freak storm and flooding… https://www.reddit.com/r/Edmonton/comments/1ut9c7h/barely_made_it_home/

 

[sundancer 44707xp 1]

Hard to hobby when the paint dries on the brush XD

Just relaxing today.

[limburger 22537xp 1]

too hot to think properly already …

so glad I got up early so I could enjoy the cool morning breeze before the evil day star started doing its thing.

 

[grantinvanman 10417xp 0]

Does no one in Europe have air conditioning? We would die without it here. Been high 20s by midday, doesn’t cool off until around 2100hrs.

Washed my Friday bike today, there’s nice shade on my driveway, had to get all the bugs off it (one big gross one splatted on the headlight!), and lots of smaller ones. I really love the yellow bike for riding, but dislike all the chrome. It shows water spots too easily, went through 10 micro fibre cloths to polish it up. On the other hand, the black bikes are dust magnets. Can’t win.

Rain coming mid week, so maybe some genuine hobby time ahead…

 

I’ve been watching the new Tom Hanks narrated WW2 doc; it reminded me of this 1:285 (6mm scale) Stalingrad grain elevator I built circa 2015(?).

33cm long, scratch built, remove able tops to expose the workings of the elevator.

 

[pagan8th 15307xp 0]

Can’t speak for everyone in this part of the world, but aircon is not a thing over here. Some businesses have it, but as a rule private home don’t.

[sundancer 44707xp 0]

Good moaning everyone. It’s moanday! XD

Does no one in Europe have air conditioning? We would die without it here. Been high 20s by midday, doesn’t cool off until around 2100hrs.

@grantinvanman  Not the more northern parts. Because prior to 2010 and earlier years having a week with 30+°C was rare. There had been short heat waves but nothing this intense and for such a long time. So there was no need for aircon. You would just stay in the shadows, have a drink and wait till dusk and that was it. I’m avoiding certain terms that spring to mind when it gets hotter around the globe because that definitely crosses the line into politics for some 😉

tl;dr no, we didn’t need them most of the time so nobody had any. But things are changing.

[grantinvanman 10417xp 1]

Actually, @sundancer and @pagan8th when I first moved to Alberta in 2001, mountain cooling was a “real thing”; hot during the day maybe but by supper time, it was already cooling. That’s changed. Call it “climate change”.

Twenty ish years later, air conditioning is a necessity to be comfortable. That’s a trend. The house I’m building will have AC built in from the plan. Never would have done it two decades ago.

[limburger 22537xp 1]

Does no one in Europe have air conditioning? We would die without it here. Been high 20s by midday, doesn’t cool off until around 2100hrs.

Short answer : nope. Offices and shops do have it. For everyone else it can be expensive, too expensive or impossible.
We’ve only ‘recently’ (over the past 50 odd years) managed to upgrade most homes to have central heating.
Improving insulation to make central heating cost-effective (or at least : not ruin your bank account) has been a real issue.
It also doesn’t help when the fat cats in charge aren’t exactly known for setting good examples or simply too dumb (our current prime minister didn’t understand how nuclear power could be used to provide heat … )

It doesn’t help that a lot of our houses simply are too old to upgrade in any meaningful way.
I remember my dad better windows and isolating his house in the 80’s …
And the house I’ve got now is from the 60’s. It’s gotten all the upgrades it could have.
Only thing left would be solar power … except that is an investment that is made impossible as on days like these we’d be producing energy that has nowhere to go.  (to say nothing of the potential fire hazard that a battery to store that excess energy would be … ).

Our government wants us to improve, but they simply refuse to understand the economics of scale and the reality (loads of consultants, but too few technicians …). Heck, a few days ago they shut down electricity because the network couldn’t handle it. You’d think those responsible for managing said network would have upgraded it … especially given that our government wants us to go fully electric and less dependent on fossil fuel.

Did I mention that in the province of Utrecht they already can’t build new houses as the grid can’t handle any new connections ?

I wouldn’t be surprised that if I called for an estimate to upgrade to solar power that I would be denied as the grid couldn’t handle it. So even if I wanted to be as ‘green’ and ‘environmentally responsible’ as possible there’s a good chance that I can’t even if I can afford the upgrade. I already know my main fuse box would have to be upgraded. I know it is possible because my neighbours have solar … but possible and cost-effective are two different things.

I’d love to upgrade to solar though. Not because of ‘environment’, but because it makes me less dependent on idiotic cost of electricity. Plus it would make adding air conditioning a possibility.

Anyways …
I also think that as we get older our perception of weather and how it affects us changes.
Heck the kids in my neighbourhood have been out all day jumping around as if it wasn’t tropical.
While I’ve been doing my best to not move an inch.

I’ve also noticed how the media have changed how they have been reporting weather. A few years ago they wouldn’t declare a ‘tropical heatwave’ unless a specific spot in the middle of our country had experienced temperatures above a specific range.
We’d be sweating like pigs, but the news would tell us that there was no heatwave …
Now they’ve changed it and suddenly we’re getting ‘code red’ and all sorts of panic inducing messages because it may be above 25 degrees Celsius for more than a single day.

To say that I am sceptical about these things is to put it mildly. When there is a lot of “Rules for thee, not for me”.

Did I mention that the EU idiots like to move their entire thing between Brussels and Strassbourg every f*ckin’ month because the idiots didn’t want to pick one spot to have their parliament ? And those guys want to tell me to ‘save energy’ ?

Also : don’t underestimate our ability to complain about inane things …

/rant

[grantinvanman 10417xp 0]

AI data centres are the new hotness for the economy over here; the amount of energy and water they consume is obscene, so no guilt over AC for me. And my garage is heated for winter to 17c, which is quite comfortable. Mix of gas and electricity in Alberta; they just put an insane recycling fee into solar systems which has killed the industry for all intents and purposes. Oil is Alberta, even if we have the nastiest worst kind to extract from the tar sands. And limited refinery ability – most is sent south to refine. So that’s a whole thing.

 

Hey, look! We can complain together 🤣

[horati0nosebl0wer 20619xp 2]

HVAC for residential is a pain for installation. I’ve done some commercial remodel work and its bad enough for deadlines (schools are the worst for summer vacation). Better to strip a building to bare bones and rebuild parts of a system as necessary. I can’t speak to architecture outside of frame building but I can imagine what kind of pain it is to try and do. I also can think that trying to meet modern code standards is a pain unless there’s grandfathering for historical value. That’s a whole different can of worms that I’ll leave in the hands of engineers/code enforcers/local government.

Thinking about electrification, I was recently working on extraction fans in a retirement community and it reminded me of the one for my airbrush. I then got to thinking about differences between the running a system versus just going through @warzan route and priming a metric butt ton of model for winter. I think Black Magic Craft did an episode on his garage extraction system out there in Canada. The juice needed to run a studio isn’t too high but the added load is there as pointed out.

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