Tuesday 28 July 2015

July 2015 Loot Crate

The July 2015 Loot Crate theme was "Heroes 2" and cost $29.99 USD. (about $45 with the exchange rate as it is.)

The contents this month:
Q-pop Batman (with exclusive word bubble)
Regrettable Super Heroes book (with exclusive cover)
Batman multi-tool keychain
Brawlhalla download card
Legend of Zelda wristband
Wonder Woman mini poster
Star Trek air freshener
Looter mag and pin

This month is another paper heavy month but it makes up for it with some pretty cool items. The Q-Pop figure is awesome and the box doubles as a building for him to stand on.

The other physical items are the keychain, wristband and air freshener, these are okay items, the keychain is pretty big so probably more something you keep at home. I'm not sure how many people wear just one wristband but it is nice. I have another from a previous block so at least I have two. The air freshener is what it is.

The paper and digital items are pretty cool though. The poster is pretty cool and the Brawlhalla code gets you a character and some skins for it (the game is free too!) The other big item in the crate is the Regrettable Heroes book. This is pretty nice and I look forward to reading it.


So this crate felt kinda similar to the first heroes crate, it missed the mark for me a little bit. I feel like it is too hard to cover heroes from many different genres in one go (Marvel didn't make an appearance at all...) On the other hand the last villains crate was one of my favourites. I'm happy with the crate overall, the major items are all good, it was the minor items that could have been better in my opinion. The value is there from just the book and Batman figure so no real loss.

As I predicted, next months theme is Villains 2. I look forward to it!

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Saturday 25 July 2015

July 2015 Japan Crate

This crate is a bit different from the others in that it is a food crate. It was a 'premium' crate and came with 12 different Japanese snacks for $45 USD. The wife and I had looked at this a couple times and were both really keen to try it out, just once.


The items were:

  • Chameleon candy - Hard candies that all start off the same colour (and flavour) but change after sucking for a little while. Each only changes once and the flavours were pretty nice.
  • Potekoro cubes - A bit like little croutons, with a subtle black pepper flavour. I would quite happily have them again, could have used a bigger pack really.
  • Chu grape jelly - Its jelly in a plastic tube, jelly on the go! Nothing spectacular or different but it would be a convenient snack.
  • Maken gummy - A single gummy sweet in a hand shape of either paper, scissors or rock. Tasty but not unlike a large gummy bear.
  • Animal drawing sherbet DIY - A DIY candy pack, we haven't had time to try this one yet. Not exactly an on-the-go snack, needs a freezer. The DIY concept would be fun to do with the kids though.
  • Lifeguard paste - 'Lifeguard' is a drink in Japan, this is a thick paste of the same flavour. Was quite nice if a bit difficult to get out of the package.
  • Adzuki mizu yokan - A red bean snack. Neither of us liked this one.
  • Choco bar Z kinako - A wafer stick coated in soy chocolate. This was quite nice, a bit like a churro covered in a blend of peanut butter and chocolate.
  • Kids beer - This drink tastes a lot like creaming soda but looks like beer, yellowy-brown with a foam head. Too sweet for me but the wife liked it.
  • Corn potage chips - These corn puffs are like munchos but in sweetcorn soup flavour. These were the favorite item in the box, everyone who tried one couldn't place the flavour at first. It does actually taste a lot like corn soup though, unlike 'chicken chips' for example.
  • Kajiri chew - Cola taffy wrapped around lemon taffy. Nice but not a strong flavour.
  • Sour lemon gum - Not as sour as the pack claims but more so than your average sour candy. I'm not a fan of gum myself but the flavour lasted a long time so it wasn't so bad.
There were some very nice snacks in this crate but not many were 'out there' like we were expecting. Better than american candy but not too dissimilar than our own. Only one we didn't like which wasn't too bad. Overall we were pretty happy with this crate. Definitely worth a try if you are curious but this isn't an awesome value deal, equivalent local items would cost you around $2-3 each, these cost on average $6 each. I will definitely be having a look at the local Asian supermarkets though to see what they have available! 

Wednesday 22 July 2015

June 2015 Loot Crate

First change of the re-defined blog, I'm splitting my loot reviews, for easier searching!

The June 2015 Loot Crate theme was "Cyber" and cost $29.99 USD. (about $45 with the exchange rate as it is.)

Sorry for blurry photo, I didn't realize until after I had opened half the items...
The contents this month:
Optimus Prime / Tron crossover T-shirt
Borderlands mouse mat
Pencil case with glow in the dark circuit design
Terminator Genisys 1/2 scale endoskull
Terminator brain chip necklace
Replicant patch
Battlestar Galactica cylon target sheets (two in a cool envelope)
NerdHQ stickers
Loot Crate badge

This crate had a lot of little items and some paper but balanced it with some cool solid items as well. For anyone questioning the value of these things, the endoskull is available here as a pre-order at $55. I love the shirt, its great. The endoskull and brain chip are pretty cool (the chip is solid metal and really heavy) and I'm sure at some point I will find something perfect to attach my growing pile of patches to. The other stuff I can take or leave, the cylon targets are cool but I don't really know what to do with them. I haven't used a mouse mat in ages as cheap optical mice tend not to like patterned surfaces. But it is cool, maybe I will find somewhere for it.

Value-wise this crate is a good one, between the skull, shirt and chip you are looking at $90 so all up this would be around $100. This is why I keep sticking with Loot Crate, I may not have bought everything for myself but I'm not selling it all off either. All for around the cost of a decent geeky shirt.

July's theme is Heroes 2. But it is already shipping at the time of this post. See the July block review for the next theme! (I suspect villains 2...)

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Changes are Coming

Yep I have been a slacker, I know. I have spent the last two weeks being a full time solo dad while my wife toured around Singapore and Sydney. This made even thinking about painting or blogging impossible (the washing alone took up most of my evenings after work) so there is literally nothing to post about.

But things are changing. My good friend at BioGames Miniatures has just lost his supplier, seriously cutting short the range of products I can easily buy. I've got much less time than I used to for hobbying as I spend more time with my daughter or helping around the house. And top all of that with a lack of desire to keep doing more of the same, I need a break. So here is the plan:

  • I've trimmed back the list of games I'm going to keep for playing, to something more realistic. I will hang on to specific models for display but most of what I have is on the chopping block. I aim to have my unpainted pile cut in half.
  • Kickstarters are pretty much a thing of the past. I have 3 still awaiting money and two of those I may not get anything from. I cant miss another Bones kickstarter though, so that is staying.
  • With all these cuts that means I'm going to be down to much less to paint and so the painting part of the blog is going to have a more finite ending. As such it is going to start to shift in focus, expect more reviews of games, products, loot and maybe even some events.
These changes are starting now and will be ongoing. Hopefully people keep reading, maybe I will attract more readers. I hope I don't lose anybody but it cant really be helped. If anything maybe I will be able to post more, or at least return to regular scheduled posting...

Stay tuned for Junes Loot crate review, I figured I should post it before the July one arrives!

Sunday 5 July 2015

Week 27 - Toxic Zombies

Another quiet couple of weeks with not a huge amount to show for it. I managed to catch the only sunny and warm weekend days in time to get some zombies spray painted though. I had almost run out of white spray though so had to use it very sparingly. I had heard that that was how you were 'supposed' to do it so I consider it a trial run for more important models.

I got 37 toxic zombies on the painting table so they are all underway. 14 of them are finished, I decided not to do the blood effect on them though, I figure that they are best dealt with at range, so have less blood on them? Maybe I will go back and add it, I don't know. These are the first batch on the clear bases I bought for them just after Zombicide season 2 KS ended. So they have been hanging around for a while!


Those guys should be pretty easy to pick out of the crowd, I hope to do something similar for the berserk zombies but in orange. Hopefully they come out okay. I purchased some more Scourge in order to escalate my games with Knightwolf, at least once our learning games of Planetfall are over.

Day 186
200/186 Painted/Days passed
Goals:
Commission models - 10
Finish painting Infinity Morats - 11/11
Paint all DZC Scourge - 36/46
Paint all Directorate - 44/44
Finish all of the Dreadball teams and MVPs. - 4/4
Build and paint remaining KOW Elves - 68/83
Paint all Toxic zombies - 14/37
Paint all Berserk zombies - 0/37
Build and paint a full Malifaux crew - 12/16
Build and paint all Deadzone Enforcers - 0/34
Build and paint all Deadzone Plague - 0/21