Fallout Wasteland Warfare – Utility Protectron – Done

There is a mix of nice and not so nice things to discuss this week so we’ll try to find some kind of balance between the two. Let’s start off with some good which is finishing up the Utility Protectron. The worst part by far was when I had the front fully painted and had to try and superglue the arms and gun together. Its much easier with Fallout minis to assemble before painting but some models have limbs that block your ability to paint other parts of the mini well so sub-assemblies are a necessary evil for me anyway. I had to fix some paint that got removed by super glue but once that was done, it was pretty smooth sailing. Here’s a look at the finished product.

While this mini isn’t perfect, I do feel like I’m on a bit of a roll with this Protectron and the Raider Power Armor. I think I’ve gotten a bit better at referencing photos and painting rust and its paying dividends which is a great thing to say.

The number of primed minis on my hobby desk is decreasing so my options are getting thinner and thinner. Hopefully a good priming day comes along soon so I can change that. I actually have no idea what I’m going to paint next so it will be a surprise to both of us what I have to show off next weekend.

And now onto some less pleasant news for a bit. I learned some tough lessons this week and have been thrown off my painting game a bit. I have used Winsor and Newton brushes for years and I’ve gotten them on Amazon for years as well. I’ve never had any issues with them and wouldn’t have considered trying any other brush. However, I’ve had two brushes split right down the middle during normal use which has never happened before. Even brush soap won’t really fix these brushes which surprised me even more. It is pretty upsetting because Winsor and Newton brushes around about $20 a pop on Amazon. Sometimes a little less and sometimes a little more. Here’s a look at the brushes in their now unusable state.

The bristles look worse than Boris Johnson’s hair! England hasn’t mistreated the US this bad since the war of 1812. I must have accidentally bought these from Terry Tibbs on Amazon! Forget tariffs on China, we need 300% ones on the UK to stop this kind of robbery!

In all seriousness, I scrambled to do some brush research once I realized that these brushes couldn’t be saved and ended up ordering some Rosemary and Co brushes to try out. From what I gather, fake Winsor and Newton brushes get sold on Amazon because in the US anyway, they don’t really care much about anything other than profits, I’m sorry to say. They barely pack anything anymore and their delivery people make quite a lot of mistakes (compared to the postal service and UPS and FedEx anyway). Hopefully I like the new Rosemary ones as I don’t trust buying brushes on Amazon any longer. More recently, I’ve been on a bit of a one-man mission to divest myself from Amazon where I can anyway because of the things I’ve described above and this gives me another way to do that.

I jokingly referred to tariffs above and unfortunately, the effect of them is starting to become clearer on one of our hobbies. I don’t follow board games super closely because I can’t really find time to play any new ones but I heard that not only is Cool Mini Or Not (who is a big company in the industry) is pausing future Kickstarters and laying people off. Greater Than Games, the makers of Sentinels of the Multiverse, have laid off most of their staff as well. Its a real shame and I’m guessing that the board game industry is an example of how a large number of smaller and a few larger companies that are going to get hit hard by any trade wars with China. I don’t know what the future of Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive Edition is. There is the base game, which I own, an expansion that is already released which I don’t own, and then another expansion was kickstarted and was about to be released. That is up in the air now and I will have to hope that Sentinels can survive all this chaos and keep releasing products as I really enjoy the game and can see myself playing it for quite some time.

Truthfully, I haven’t seen any real price increases in stores yet so where the tariffs are going is a mystery to me but when you see it start to interfere with your hobby, that is upsetting. It also makes me think that I might not be writing many more Sentinels guides because the audience for them is more likely to shrink than grow if the game is in fact dead. These are uncertain times, to be sure.

To end on a happier note, I have been reading some enjoyable comics lately and I thought I’d mention two that might be of general interest. If you like Batman at all, then I’d strongly recommend Absolute Batman.

The seventh issue just came out which means there should be a collected edition (aka trade paperback available soon). Absolute Batman makes Bruce younger, not rich, and super smart (kind of like Tony Stark, though nowhere near as arrogant). Some of these ideas have probably been done before because Batman is such an old character and many people have tried to reinvent the character but I think Bruce feels a bit more like a real person and less invincible here. His mother is still alive in this alternate universe which makes him feel more vulnerable than other incarnations of Batman as well. The other thing that sets Absolute Batman apart is the villains are really menacing and feel contemporary. The villain of the first arc is really tech savvy and basically encourages people to commit mass crime to undermine law and order in Gotham. After seeing less organized versions of these crimes take place in the US, its easy to relate to the story and makes you root for Batman who is definitely fighting against all the odds. The art is very unique and high quality in this series as well. I’ve never read or especially enjoyed Batman comics but I gave Absolute Batman a hearty recommendation.

The other series that has less broad appeal but I still wanted to mention is Assorted Crisis Events. It is an anthology series (which means each issue is a standalone story) that focuses on the post-apocalypse. That’s obviously right up my alley but Assorted Crisis Events is for people who like to read something that makes them think. This is not a grand adventure like The Postman! In the first issue of Assorted Crisis Events, time is no longer functioning properly. Random objects, events, and even people are being removed from existence. You wouldn’t think that this is a big deal but our lives really depend on the continuity that time gives us. This issue is basically an exploration of what it would be like if this happened, how people would try to deal with it, and how it would undermine so many things that we take for granted. The second issue just came out on Wednesday and so I’m looking forward to reading it in the near future but I thought I’d mention it as I know there are a couple of post-apocalypse and comic book fans who regularly follow this blog. Its getting harder and harder to do anything new or fresh in the post-apocalypse genre but Assorted Crisis Events is off to a strong start.