FBTB

Tag: Warhammer 40k Advent Calendar

  • FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Wrap Up

    FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Wrap Up

    Here we are again, the end of our series of spammy posts opening advent calendars, getting things wrong, questioning reality, and almost driving ourselves mad, and generally wondering how these things keep getting made. Somehow, inexplicably, Harry Potter ends up as the “winner” this year after Star Wars stumbled hard at the end. The loser is clearly the Marvel calendar, which was just… ugh.

    Final Count

    • Star Wars: 12 Hits / 12 Misses
    • Harry Potter: 13 Hits / 11 Misses
    • Marvel: 10 Hits / 14 Misses

    Ace’s Thoughts on Star Wars

    12 hit and 12 misses, a perfectly even 50-50 ratio of … hits and misses. No other way to describe it really but I would like to call out a few specifically.

    I think the lowest point for me was a tie between the inclusion of the Beach-going Darth Vader (and his paired sandcastle build) and the Battle Droid. Call me old fashioned, but I’d like it if my advent calendars stuck with a wintery theme. Hoth may be a beaten horse at this point so I get that LEGO is trying to put in inspired builds from a variety of sources. Vader here though felt so out of left field and honestly a little jarring to open up. And the Battle Droid was such a low-effort throw-in, throwaway day that it’s honestly insulting to get. There wasn’t even a paired build with it. It was just filler that was less that fulfilling.

    The highlights include the ugly sweater minifigs for the obvious reasons. One star is R2-D2 just for the mere fact that putting an ugly sweater on R2 is like dressing up your dog in a costume: there’s no point to it but you do it just cause it’s cute:

    It’s so kitschy I love it. But my absolute top pick? It’s gotta be this:

    B-wing from Day 14. I love me some obscure ships that are on screen for mere milliseconds! Fairly certain that there hasn’t been an official mini ship of the B-wing so if this is all we get, then I will love it til the end of my days.

    Overall, a multi-build set having only half the builds be great (in this reviewer’s opinion) is not a great value proposition. With some of the days being a paired build, it really feels like you’re getting rejected polybag sets split over two days to fill out the days as much as possible. The source material for this year’s set spanned multiple movies resulting in a disjointed experience. There’s a lot of material when it comes to Star Wars. I wish they would do a whole calendar based on a planet, a scene, or battle or something. Keep it consistent, and bring the quality up.

    Eric’s Thoughts on Harry Potter and Hot Sauce

    Was this the worst LEGO Harry Potter Advent Calendar I’ve ever done? Probably not. Was it a bad experience? Oh yeah.

    So it turns out, drinking a 24 tablespoons of hot sauce was a bad idea. I had a dozen stomachaches, nearly threw up once, and fell into a sort of subservient routine where I would just drink the hot sauce without thinking. It was easier that way.

    Maybe it’s because of that, but I really think this year’s calendar was BAD. LEGO tried something new last year, too – with a sort of Candy-Land-like board game. I hated that one back then, but at least that game made sense. This year’s…I don’t even know. It’s a bad game, and LEGO committed to it so hard. With last year, you could ignore the board game and just “enjoy” the builds. That’s impossible this year. Every build is on a 2×4 plate. Every third build is a minifig. It’s formulaic, and the surrpise of each day went from “ooh I wonder what piece of the puzzle this will be” to “I wonder how they’ll represent Order of the Phoenix in a bad way”. Am I jaded? Yes. I drank 24 tablespoons of hot sauce.

    But we also get a wild range of quality. From the excellent Knight Bus vignette, which is about as good as you can do when committing to these builds, to the Pensieve, which looks like a crap sci-fi button.

    I will admit, this is probably my favorite minifig selection since 2020 (which is still unbeaten in every single aspect). No Ron, no Hermione, no Dumbledore – we get some under-represented characters, albeit ones that we’ve seen before, for the most part. And an owl, which LEGO tried to pass off as a minifig.

    And here is the bane of my December: 24 hot sauces. What a wild ride it’s been. I genuinely will not forget some of these days: Day 2’s Ghost Pepper introducing me to what a horrible idea this actually was. Day 13’s Carolina Reaper just putting me in the ground. Day 20’s Spicy Agave, the greatest hot sauce, which reignited my love for all things spicy.

    There were some duds in here for sure, but if I piqued your interest, let me offer two approaches: for the spiciest, just absolutely brutal hot sauces, you can grab the Torchbearer Sauces off of Amazon. You’ve got all the hits in there: Carolina Reaper, two Ghost Pepper sauces, Horseradish, Garlic – it’s a HUGE range, and every single hot sauce tastes distinctive. But if you want GOOD sauces, let me introduce you to the Tabañero collection. The curry and agave specifically are top-notch, and genuinely my two favorites. The other two: Original and Extra Hot, aren’t shabby, either.

    Now we’ll see if LEGO will finally do a Slug Club Advent Calendar like I’ve been suggesting for two years. I swear, if I open one more day with a little Year 1 Harry Potter in it, I will lose my mind.

    Reading Nick’s thoughts, I guess we’ve opened Pandora’s Box and will be doing an extra calendar every year now. I’m down. But maybe something non-edible this year.

    Nick’s Thoughts on Guardians of the Galaxy and Space Marines

    I’m way too lazy to go and look up the previous calendars, but the Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy calendar has got to be the worst one that I’ve ever opened. The Avengers one last year was a mixed bag, but at least it was unique, and it’s just bizarre that it’s already fizzled in just its second year. Who knows if they’re going to try and continue it into next year… the mix of what’s going on in Marvel doesn’t exactly lend itself into continuing this.

    It feels like they could do this better with Spider-Man, since they could do villains or all the spider-verse and give it a fun theme in the holidays. There’s already so many jokes they can tap, but getting Marvel and Sony to play into the licensing is likely an impossible game for LEGO to do, and probably not worth it. Honestly, it feels like this calendar would work so much better over on the DC side. I mean, bring the LEGO Batman Movie and the rogues gallery back as an Advent with a Christmas theme and it would just be fantastic. Problem is that WB/HBO/DC/Whatever is just a gross tire fire right now and who knows how it’d all work.

    For my other calendar, it was a fun little exercise in just nerding out a bit on my main hobby. I didn’t really grade the calendar because it was mostly for fun – and because, part that I left out, the thing is totally not worth buying. Live vicariously through me, because that stupid thing is $100 dollars. I can’t even blame Games Workshop (notorious for their pricing) on that one, as it’s produced by Bandai. GW licensed stuff doesn’t tend to be marked up stupid amounts compared to comparable things – action figures are in line with similar things, video games, etc. Why these little Chibis were so expensive I’ll never know, but they’re fun. The few I care about are going to be on display, the unpainted one will get painted, and the rest will get put away.

    Now all I have to do is figure out is what I can possibly top that with next year…

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  • FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 24

    FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 24

    Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

     

    Here we are again, on the last day. Ace got his pictures in at the 11th hour, Nick remembered to come in and edit his post to remove eighteen paragraphs worth of text that he’d put in to a nice succinct twelve pages, and Eric might actually be dead now from all the hot sauces he ate,  so we’ve replaced him with a Roomba.

    • Star Wars: 11 Hits / 12 Misses
    • Harry Potter: 12 Hits / 11 Misses
    • Marvel: 9 Hits / 14 Misses

    LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

    At last, we finally arrive at the last day of the Advent Calendar and we’re treated to an R2 unit wearing an ugly Christmas sweater. R2-D2 here is wearing a sweater emblazoned with C-3PO’s head. A nice counterpart to Threepio from Day 9 wearing a sweater with R2-D2 on it. Only besties would be that coordinated and be willing to wear clothing with the other person’s likeness on it. I realize I said person when referring to mechanical automatons but you get my drift.

    Today’s build is quite the winner, ending the calendar on a good note. The average is exactly half: 50% good and 50% bad. If we were in school, that would be a failing grade, so this entire calendar gets a thumbs down.

    LEGO Harry Potter  / Hot Sauces (Eric)

    For 24 days I have been putting one tablespoon of hot sauce in my stomach. That’s a cup and a half, which actually doesn’t seem like that much, but now that I’m looking back, this more than anything has outshone my Christmas season.

    Thank God it’s Christmas Eve so I don’t have to do any more.

    Fittingly, today’s build has nothing to do with Christmas, a great continuation of the last 23 days.

    This minifig is fine. I’m just bitter that literally nothing in this calendar has anything to do with Christmas.

    Today’s hot sauce – HOT SAUCE FROM HELL – is another version of day 1’s hot sauce, which couldn’t have been more circular if I’d planned it. But I do think it says something about how much my tolerance has grown that I barely felt this one. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve lost a piece of my soul along the way.

    Roombas aren’t supposed to have souls, anyway.

    LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

    There’s something nice that this wet turd of a calendar isn’t going out on a low note, I guess. All of the minis should have had torsos like this, especially Mantis and Peter, which would have been directly on-theme for the Christmas Special, where they both were a lot more festive (where Drax was not). So this one is a hit, at least.

    The last day isn’t a chapter, but there’s honestly nothing more representative of Warhammer than this, a simple, unpainted, gray miniature (or grey, because, you know, they’re a British company). I’ve talked about the goofy lore about Warhammer 40k, some of the history of it, and the fandom that can give the bonkers and often infuriating nature of Star Wars fans a run for their money.

    Those are all part of the attraction of what draws me to Warhammer, but not the biggest part of what keeps me there. In the end, really, it’s the simple plastic guys. They’re not cheap – they give LEGO a run for their money on cost (though, thanks to the stupid escalation of UCS and adult collector sets, LEGO is a vastly more expensive hobby).

    I’ve been into this game several times in my life, and got back into it when COVID first hit. It was a rough time for all of us, and sitting at home, these little guys kept me sane while my family and I were all stuck inside. I’ve found that it’s the sort of thing that can scratch multiple itches of things I want and love. I can build things, I can do hobby things, I can play games, and I can get social fun. I’ve made new friends, gotten into new communities, and found a ton of new things to watch and enjoy.

    Of course, the purpose of these minis isn’t to stay as gray plastic, it’s to get primed, painted, and turned into something else. So… obviously, I need to turn it into something. Blood Angels and Ultramarines, the two chapters I collect, are already on done. So, I’m open to suggestions or ideas. Obviously, I should figure out something custom.

    Maybe we need an FBTB-themed Space Marine. What would the colors of the Bothan’s Chapter be?

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  • FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 23

    FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 23

    Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

     

    One day left!

    • Star Wars: Star Wars: 11 Hits / 11 Misses
    • Harry Potter: 11 Hits / 11 Misses
    • Marvel: 9 Hits / 13 Misses

    LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

    Santa Gonk Droid can go to hell. It doesn’t even look like a Gonk Droid. Me calling it a Gonk Droid is a huge assumption on my part. For all we know it could be a Jawa inside carboard box. It’s top heavy and tips over easily. The only good thing I can say about is that it has the Santa colors right. But not sure what the 1×2 ingot plate is supposed to be. It fits in neither the Santa nor the Gonk Droid aesthetics.

    LEGO Harry Potter  / Hot Sauces (Eric)

    Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

    The temperature in Nashville dropped 50 degrees last night. Snow is covering the ground now – gives it a real Christmas-y feeling that I hadn’t realized I’d been lacking. You know, because this Advent Calendar has nothing to do with Christmas.

    I can’t help but love this build, though. If every single day had been as good as today and yesterday, this calendar would have hit legendary status. The mini train is gorgeous, and I appreciate that they added a part of the station in the back – again, it gives it some depth, and makes it feel like much more of a real scene.

    I mean, just look at that thing!

    Today’s hot sauce is CHIPOTLE BBQ. It’s actually pretty good – I’d throw it on a pulled pork sandwich.

    One day left, and one minifig left! Maybe it’ll be Santa.

    LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

    We are up to day 23, and we get a trash back on the butt of this butt of a build.

    Oh, look, it’s a garbage sleigh that took three days of this calendar. I think. It could just be something that someone made up. My wife and I watched the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special last night. It was good, we laughed – my comment at the opening was “this sounds like Rhett Miller” and then I saw that it featured the Old 97s, and Rhett Miller is the lead singer, so, that was really cool.

    There was nothing at all that looked like this at any point in the special. It doesn’t even look like anything I know of in Guardians. Maybe this could have come together and been a cool build that was worth three days, but it just didn’t. It’s like I want to go back and take away all of the marginal ups that I’d given this thing. This is awful.

    So I did a little mix-up and switched my day 22 and day 23, and this was supposed to be yesterday’s feature instead of the Flesh Tearers, but you know, who was gonna know that but me? I could have said nothing.

    I’ve mentioned that the lore of 40k is based upon the fact that the narrator is just… unreliable. I don’t mean in individual stories, I mean the omnipresent “narrator” of the whole universe. Retcons are something that can leave a Star Wars fan complaining for twenty five years as things get changed and rechanged and changed again. For a Warhammer fan, a retcon is just a Tuesday.

    I’m not sure I’m using that joke right.

    The Tome Keepers are the “official” chapter of White Dwarf, the official marketing materials magazine of Games Workshop. Out of game, they’re the newest one in the whole calendar, having only been introduced back in 2020. Of course, the history they got along with that was that they date back to M32 and the 4th founding, and have been in the background all along – and that they’re a bunch of book nerds.

    Well, one sort of book nerd, more of that they’re really big into journaling. Every brother of the Tome Keepers keeps a record of their deeds, their battles, and their actions. A written record, and when a brother falls, another brother acts as the scribe to write the final entry before it’s entered in the vault with the other fallen brothers. In theory, this means that the Tome Keepers likely have one of the most complete and unbroken records in the Imperium of, albeit a narrow slice, of what has happened over an 8,000 year period. Of course, that knowledge is mostly sealed away and likely forbidden, and like almost everything, looking at a lot of it is Heresy.

    All of the lore for the Tome Keepers has only ever been published in White Dwarf, which has short stories from their own staff and Black Library writers. Most of them have been fairly solid, though haven’t given a whole lot. The color scheme is fairly interesting and unique, but they haven’t been given a whole lot in background as of yet.

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  • FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 22

    FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 22

    Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

     

    Three more days! Can Harry Potter and Marvel pull out of this nosedive?

    • Star Wars: 11 Hits / 10 Misses
    • Harry Potter: 10 Hits / 11 Misses
    • Marvel: 9 Hits / 12 Misses

    LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

    This looks like absolutely nothing. But I remember seeing a picture somewhere, I think it was Amazon, on what it is supposed to be. It is, I think, supposed to combine with yesterday’s Hoth Luke to create a small yet stunning vignette:

    You can probably replace the bone with the lightsaber handle to secure it down a little better. I opted for the lazy approach and just laid it on top of the tooth plates. Yesterday’s and today’s build together would actually make for a nice polybag, doncha think? And together, like I said, make for a really nice small scene. But by itself, it sucks. I’m not sure why LEGO does these paired builds connecting one day to the next. Some are good, some aren’t. The good ones are ones where the builds stand by themselves, but in cases like today’s or the weapons rack mainstay, they suck.

    LEGO Harry Potter  / Hot Sauces (Eric)

    Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

    Moving on the final movie of the calendar – Deathly Hallows Part 2. Fingers crossed.

    Figures that just when I thought I was out of the woods, I pull a ghost pepper sauce. Very exciting for me.

    But WOW, today’s build! All the best parts of this calendar are really coming in at the end here. This is a spectacular adaptation of one of the most spectacular scenes in the whole franchise – the dragon busting out of Gringotts Bank. My only wish is that we could’ve had this dragon wing part instead, but it’s really a small nitpick.

    Today’s hot sauce – ASS-KICKIN’ GHOST PEPPER – was rough, but this is my third time with that particular pepper, so it doesn’t bother me as much as it used to.

    LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

    Oh… so our build isn’t a two day build. It’s more than that. Welcome to the shortest review I will ever write on this site: this is garbage.

    The Blood Angels are a chapter that struggles with a flaw and rage so deep that their Brothers spend their days in a constant struggle against it lest they fall to the Black Rage and are lost forever. As a chapter, they are a reflection of their fallen Primarch, a blend of prowess, regal grace, rage, and deadly efficiency.

    The Flesh Tearers, their most well-known successor, is what happens when you spin up a new chapter and go “hey, that Rage stuff looks great, but you can keep all that other stuff.” They were created in the second founding, with one of the survivors of the Chapter who recovered from the rage that followed from the death of their Primarch (most… did not).

    Nassir Amit was already extreme even by Heresy and Blood Angels standards, and his nickname, the “Flesh Tearer,” served as the name of the new chapter. His company carried flaying knives in standard to their standard war gear, and had been censured multiple times by Sanguinius for going to far.

    Coming out of the Heresy, they pursued the traitors and enemies of mankind with an incredible amount of zeal, but it also exposed that the Flaw was particularly pronounced in the new chapter. While all Blood Angels eventually fall to the Black Rage should they live long enough (with a few exceptions, though the longest serving have mastered it), the Flesh Tearers were falling to the rage within 200 years or so.

    This, in effect, means that the chapter cannot replenish their numbers effectively, and have always been among the smallest chapters. The Codex Astartes limits a chapter to no more than 10 companies of 1000 marines, but the Flesh Tearers have never had more than four. At their smallest, they’ve been down to a single chapter.

    More recently, leading up to the Indomitus Crusade, when the returned Robute Guilliman worked to reunite the galaxy and bring the Primaris marines to reinforce the chapters across the galaxy, the Flesh Tearers and dozens of others of Blood Angels chapters were nearly wiped out in the battle that was called the Devastation of Baal. Baal is the homeworld of the Blood Angels, and was under attack by the Tyranids – an unstoppable force that looks suspiciously like H.R. Geiger’s art for Aliens (because… they were directly inspired by it).

    The hive fleet that attacked Baal was the most massive ever seen, and was such a threat, that the Blood Angels called for all reinforcements. Nearly 30,000 Space Marines – More than 60 chapters in total, answered the call to defend the planet, and it was absolutely brutal. Seven chapters were wiped out completely, four chapter masters were killed, and a dozen more reduced under fighting strength.

    Ironically, it wasn’t just the Indomitus Crusade’s arrival at the last moment that drove back all the Tyranids… it was also an ancient Bloodthirster, a daemon of Khorne, Ka’Bandha, one of the oldest enemies of the Blood Angels and someone whose ass was kicked by Sanginius twice. He didn’t do it to be nice, he just feels that only he gets to wipe out the Blood Angels.

    After the battle, there was an argument between the surviving chapter masters, including current leader of the Flesh Tearers, Gabriel Seth – someone who is just a bit intense. He didn’t fight the fact that they would receive the new Primaris Marines, but also felt that without their inherent rage, they would lose what made them… I guess, special… as heirs of Sanguinius’ legacy.

    Good news, though, as things have played out, Primaris marines, including Flesh Tearer’s Primaris Marines, still totally fall to the Black Rage. So turns out that hasn’t been fixed. And these guys are still all bugnuts and angry.

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  • FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 21

    FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 21

    Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

     

    It’s basically Christmas by now. Honestly, I’m just impressed that there are enough variations on Space Marines to fill 24 days. And also impressed that Eric hasn’t gotten tired of hot sauce yet. (Just kidding, he definitely has.)

    • Star Wars: 11 Hits / 9 Misses
    • Harry Potter: 9 Hits / 11 Misses
    • Marvel: 9 Hits / 11 Misses

    LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

    Okay, it’s not a Rebel Hoth Trooper. It’s something better: Hoth Luke! The unexpected upgrade was certainly a nice surprise. This version of Luke appeared in only one other set, 75298 AT-AT vs. Tauntaun Microfighters. I never got that set so this is my first exposure to this fig. And as excited as I was to get such a nicely detailed figure of Hoth Luke, I experienced an equal amount of disappointment. ‘Cause see, just in case this is also your first exposure to Hoth Luke, the head is double sided and the stupid thing is that the hat is designed in such a way that viewing it from the back gives you this unsightly sight:

    You see the bottom of the second print peek out just under the hat. I can’t figure out if the hat was molded in such a way that it was designed around a neck accessory like a scarf or a backpack even. I can’t be bothered to look that hard cause honestly, if it was that other accessory should have been included. I admit it’s a sharp looking figure with just the right amount of detail that I appreciate, but the back view is just stupid and ruins it for me.

    LEGO Harry Potter  / Hot Sauces (Eric)

    Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

    Okay, it’s a day divisible by three, which means we get a minifig! I wonder who it’ll be…

    It’s an owl. Gross.

    We also get a little spinner to correspond with the “game” that this advent calendar is really trying to shove down my throat. I explain how it works in the video above, but the point is – it’s kinda rough and not really strategic? You just spin and either win or lose eventually.

    The hot sauce – ASS KICKIN’ BACON – is pretty much what it says on the label. It’s kinda hot, and then your mouth gets filled with the taste of a whole lot of liquid bacon. I did not love the experience.

    I’m pretty disappointed to be honest, but hopefully we’ll get some cool builds in the next two days.

     

    LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

    Oh, great, another multi-day build. Apparently we’re getting… a sleigh or a cart or something I guess? Honestly, I was almost tempted to take a picture of my facial expression in building this instead of the build itself. This isn’t just a miss, even if it wasn’t a multi-day build, it’s lame.

    The phrase “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover,” like so many phrases, is often is wrong as often as it is right. I’m not even going to make a joke about how people don’t buy books (print book sales have actually steadily been rising year over year for some time), but book art is often just lazy and boring anymore, so you can’t judge it because it says nothing. But the largest thing is usually the cover, and if it says something like, say, that Bill O’Reilly contributed to it I know that it’s going to be full of nonsense and idiotic alt-history, or if it’s John Grisham it’s likely to bore me to tears.

    In the Warhammer community, you could also turn that phrase on it’s head with something like “you can’t judge a player by their army.” Except, sometimes, you totally can. Not gonna lie, Warhammer, like so many “Game Store” hobbies, and nerdy things in general, has a stereotype stuck to it that’s often earned. It wasn’t a shock to people in the hobby that Games Workshop had to issue a big press release to tell their players “if you’re a Nazi asshole, you’re not welcome here” last year – literally. The setting is “grimdark” and built as a sort of satire where the focus group is a pseudo-fascist theocracy.

    The saying I mentioned at the start is that there are no good guys in 40k, and there are more than a few players who either don’t get that, or don’t care and overlook that fact. It’s not helped by the fact that individual stories often write about heroes, good people, or things like that, or just sort of look past that part of it in the grimdark… but it’s also not a unique thing for fans to miss the damn point and start embracing the wrong things as the hero (see… Star Wars, Rick & Morty, and just about every other property ever).

    What does any of this have to do with the Red Scorpions, today’s little Chibi character? Well… they’re the chapter that you have a much higher than average chance of being able pick a player as someone you absolutely don’t want to be around, don’t want to play with, and probably don’t want anywhere near you or your store. This is the chapter that follows the letter of the law, believes in absolute purity, and sees anyone who doesn’t follow the Emperor exactly, the Codex Astartes exactly, and only deal with “pure” humans as inferior beings that are to be shunned or destroyed.

    So in a grimdark future, full of a terrible human empire, they function as the worst of the worst representation of everything that’s wrong with the Imperium. They’re unbending, unyielding, and just awful. They don’t work with the Imperial Guard (the army of regular humans) because they employ “abhumans” (basically, the other “fantasy” races that also exist like halflings, ogres, etc). They don’t work or trust other chapters unless there are no other options, and they don’t revere any Primarch or draw ties to any founding chapter. It’s all just the emperor.

    There really aren’t any stories or Black Library books for the Chapter, just supplements and rule books, but that doesn’t stop any of the fans out there from filling in all sorts of gaps. Not at all saying there aren’t likely some decent people out there who picked this as their chapter… just saying, most of them ones who have picked them probably picked it for other reasons.

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  • FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 20

    FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 20

    Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

     

    We are getting in the home stretch, and things are either looking up or coming apart at the seams, it’s honestly hard to tell at this point. It might be both.

    • Star Wars: 11 Hits / 8 Misses
    • Harry Potter: 8 Hits / 12 Misses
    • Marvel: 9 Hits / 10 Misses

    LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

    I’m starting to think LEGO is leaning into the whole Hoth = Christmas idea pretty heavily, a whole lot more than in years past. Today’s build is a “Hoth Dish Turret” from TESB, specifically this one:

    If we don’t get a Hoth Rebel Trooper tomorrow, I’m gonna cry foul. It’s okay I guess. By itself it doesn’t really do much, it’s dependent on something else to be meaningful, like the weapons rack from a few days ago. On another note, I can’t believe we are already on Day 20.

    LEGO Harry Potter / Hot Sauces (Eric)

    Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

    Deathly Hallows Part 1 came in hot with one of the best builds in the calendar. Can we keep the streak going? Also – we’re down to just five final sauces! I am so excited to be done with this.

    Banger after BANGER. Maybe it’s because I’ve been beaten down by so many days of complete crap, but I’m actually excited to see an inspired build.

    You know the craziest part? I don’t like this movie. I don’t even like the building this build represents – the Weasley family’s house “The Burrow“. And yet this build is so well done. Again, it checks all the boxes. I am PUMPED for the rest of this calendar, in a way that I really haven’t been since…I don’t know, last year?

    And WOW, today’s hot sauce – SPICY AGAVE – is WONDERFUL. It’s for sure my favorite sauce so far – both sweet and spicy, I want to throw this on some wings right now.

    LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

    This is a holiday Advent, so we knew we were going to get a tree, and this is simultaneously the most disappointing and just the most on-brand for the rotating let-down that is this calendar. I mean, I get what they were going for here, but the issues is that it’s just so little compared to what we normally get. It’s just a plant brick with a bunch of studs stuck on it…

    More annoying is that it’s meant to go with yesterday’s Groot, that’s why the back bracket was included with him. Making him the Christmas tree. Which, yeah, I get. Maybe this is a joke from the Guardian’s Holiday Special, still haven’t watched it like I mentioned before (I need something to do Christmas Eve – I probably won’t, but maybe). If this was a single day, this would be an amazing build and a huge hit. But the fact this took up two days, they collectively make up a huge miss, because apart they don’t feel at all worth it by themselves.

    I have a critique of the iconography of the Emperor’s Spears, a loyalist chapter from the 25th founding: that’s a trident, not a spear. I guess “Emperor’s Tridents” doesn’t roll off the tongue or something, so they call it Spears. In and out of the lore, these guys are a very new chapter… they’re less than a millennia old in the Grimdark future, and were introduced in a novel and background lore a few years ago back in 2018.

    They’re… another Ultramarines successor, and they live on a water world. Thus, the trident. They guard a part of the galaxy that’s a backwater but crucial spot, like all the other backwater but crucial spots, that’s already seen two older Chapters ground down or fall to Chaos. One, ironically, was mentioned earlier, the Star Scorpions, which ended up falling to Chaos and being destroyed, before their number and iconography became that of the Mentors. Most of the lore for the Mentors are covered in the same book.

    The other are the Celestial Lions, and they technically still around but functionally unable to operate, as they only have about 96 marines and it will take them centuries to rebuild to fighting strength.

    Honestly, not a whole lot to dive into with these guys, since I haven’t read their book. They’re mostly a painting scheme, and haven’t shown up many other places. Maybe they’ll show up more in the future, but for now, they’re seemingly just a pet project of the author Aaron Dembski-Bowden.

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  • FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 19

    FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 19

    Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

     

    Yesterday, Eric revealed that he doesn’t like sriracha, and normally Nick would give him some crap for that (though, to be fair, Nick has largely converted to the house of Cholula), but given that he hasn’t watched the Guardian’s holiday special, sort of a wash.

    • Star Wars: 11 Hits / 7 Misses
    • Harry Potter: 7 Hits / 12 Misses
    • Marvel: 9 Hits / 9 Misses

    LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

    In the history of man, there are some things that should never have been done: the ALF television show, Jimmy Ray getting a recording contract, the sequel trilogy, and today’s advent build of a micro AT-ST. I mean, it checks all the boxes: reverse bipedal legs, chin cannon, left ear cannon, right ear projectile launchers, top hatch. But just because it checks all the boxes doesn’t mean it’s a winner. It’s like comparing a 1993 Geo Metro convertible to just about any other car to ever exist. That line from Jurassic Park comes to mind about trying to build the smallest AT-ST for this advent build: the designers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.  The only good thing I can say about this is that despite how bad it is, there was one that was worse. Yes, the title for all time worst AT-ST model still belongs to the very first LEGO Star Wars AT-ST set, 7127 Imperial AT-ST. Now THAT thing was an eyesore.

    LEGO Harry Potter  / Hot Sauces (Eric)

    Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

    Okay, every build from the Half-Blood Prince was a disappointment (even the couch guy, sadly). So – moving onto my second least favorite Harry Potter movie – Deathly Hallows Part 1! Let’s hope this fares better.

    WOW – does it! Today’s build is everything I loved about the Knight Bus way back on Day 7 (in the pre-Carolina Reaper days). Instantly recognizeable, having some action to it, setting the scene, and using every piece of the space. The craziest bit – I don’t even like the scene referenced here – but I adore this build!

    An extremely strong start. I’m genuinely excited to see what tomorrow holds.

    Unfortunately, the hot sauce du jour – OH MY GARLIC – was not only just a mouthful of wet garlic, but it’s also messing with my stomach. I do not feel great writing this, 15 minutes after ingesting the sauce. It wasn’t even hot. The most mild one yet.

    LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

    I am Groot. I am Groot. I am Groot. I was going to keep that up for a bit, but honestly, it was going to get old after a bit. I could just go back and copy/paste the other ones I did before… this is only a “unique” minifigure to the set because it has an added neck bracket… and that’s only for what’s coming tomorrow.

    I’m going to have some things to say about that fact then. For today, I’m not feeling charitable, for the exact same reasons I didn’t give it to the other figures. They gave him a cloud to stand on but did nothing else. Couldn’t even give him a holiday tile or something.

    Our last founding Legion from the Heresy days, the Raven Guard, the 19th Legion (or XIX, because they were really into the Roman thing back then in the future). The boys in black are descended from Corvus Corax, who’s very cleaver name is the Latin name for the common raven.

    As a chapter, they are the masters of stealth, speed, eyeliner, and listening to a lot of Death Cab for Cutie while complaining that the Emperor just doesn’t understand them. I mean, sure, the sulking and complaining was because the epic jerk that is the Emperor would sometimes do things like “teach the Primarch a lesson by having him slaughter thousands of his own loyal followers to save millions of others” or occasionally assassinate entire planets, you know, normal Emo stuff.

    The Raven Guard were one of the loyalist Legions wiped out at Istvaan V, with their numbers decimated and forces broken. Unlike the Salamanders and Iron Guard, Corax survived (thanks to being sneaky and all), and managed to get off the planet with the remnants of his forces. Of course, he was desperate to rebuild them, and get back to fighting prowess to put a big hurt on his traitor brothers. A music change was in order, going from some Dashboard Confessional and more Nine Inch Nails for a time.

    The Emperor used that to teach him another lesson, and allowed access to the same lab that was used to build the Space Marines and primarchs, letting Corax make new marines with the original “pure” genestock so he could get some revenge against Horus and the other traitors.

    It… did not go well. Turns out making new marines is hard, that’s why the Primarchs were created in the first place, and why the Emperor always uses the three step plan of 1) Make new soldiers 2) ??? 3) Genocide Old Soldiers. The project was corrupted by the Alpha Legion (the XX legion, basically the biggest evil Mary Sue there is in the lore – what’s an evil Mary Sue called, anyway), so they became some big ole mutants in the end.

    Instead, Corax ended up having to go to step 3, and rebuild his legion the slow way. That mean the Raven Guard became guerilla warriors in the galaxy-spanning war that dominated the galaxy, and didn’t have a ton of big battles compared to the other Legions. After it ended, they were reorganized into Chapters, but there were too few to make them do much. Corax, for his part, went to the only logical step a little Emo boy could, and finished his genocide of his mutant sons, left a note that said “Nevermore” – then disappeared.

    The Raven Guard are a legion in decline and have been so ever since. Several of the bonus organs for them no longer work or work right. So they have to be very selective in their recruitment. They’ve remained a fragmented force, and Corax has never reappeared. Presumably he’s in a basement somewhere, waiting for that promised My Chemical Romance tour that was coming soon… maybe the 42nd millennium will finally be the one.

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  • FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 18

    FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 18

    Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

     

    We never know if people read these, and maybe we should start planting secret messages here instead of short snappy quips. Honestly, some of these have been so forgettable it’s hard to even remember what yesterday was even about.

    • Star Wars: 10 Hits / 7 Misses
    • Harry Potter: 7 Hits / 10 Misses
    • Marvel: 8 Hits / 9 Misses

    LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

    Okay, just when I thought the Hoth well has run dry with advent material, here we are on Day 18 with a Rebel turret. Maybe they’ve done a turret before, in the old days, the days of the Old Republic, the days before we started with Season of Spam. With yesterday’s Snowtrooper, and today’s turret, methinks we’ll be getting a Rebel Hoth Trooper tomorrow. But getting back to the turret, it’s actually a pretty nice mini / micro build. The turret rotates fairly easily without falling apart and it looks like what it’s supposed to look like. I know that sounds like a low bar, but these aren’t exactly hundred dollar sets here. Thumbs up from me.

    LEGO Harry Potter  / Hot Sauces (Eric)

    Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

    Let’s wrap up the builds from Half-Blood Prince – LEGO can’t mess up a minifig, can they?

    Oh, sure they can.

    It’s Snape. The same Snape that you’ll get from two other sets. It’s again hard not to feel disappointed with the minifig collection in this calendar. Like, I know HBP is kinda Snape’s movie (in a way), but there are better characters, especially that we haven’t seen in minifig form yet. How about young Tom Riddle? Or someone from Slughorn’s Christmas Party? Anyone that’s not in a set I can grab for 30 bucks?

    Today’s hot sauce – ASS KICKIN’ SRIRACHA – is terrible. The worst tasting so far – but I’m not a huge sriracha fan. Man this has been a rough few days.

    We get six days to cover the Deathly Hallows (and then we’re done!). My expectations are unfortunately not very high.

    LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

    Ah, the Milano. I have a love and hate relationship with this ship in loving the first one, and… not loving the second one. This thing is… I don’t know. Like yesterday’s build, the proportions feel very off-putting, but it works a bit more. The Milano is a fairly chunky ship. It’s light on parts, but that works in an advent. While the snowman was just below the line, this one is just above it, albeit barely, so I will grudgingly give it a hit.

    Another one of our original Legion, the Salamanders, are considered the chapter that cares about humanity the most, and often go out of their way to protect the mere mortals around them. In that they don’t just leave them all to die when things go really sideways. I mean, sure, they’ll still commit all sorts of atrocities, war crimes, and genocides in the name of the Emperor and humanity, but they will also give the occasional hug. And that’s what’s important.

    They’re… an interesting bunch. Some of the origins of Warhammer 40k are not exactly the best, and Games Workshop has corrected some of it over the years, the Salamanders have kept some of their stuff. The name is not based on the cute little lizard, but more the mythological one, thus the dragon as the logo, so the fire thing. Their Primarch, Vulcan (yeah, bit on the nose there), ended up on a lava planet…

    … I suppose I never have really gone into that part of the lore of 40k, because it sort of goes into a lot of what messed things up in the first place. Despite the fact that all of the Primarchs refer to the Emperor has their father, they are more of a science experiment than offspring. They weren’t born, they were made. As in, they were literally a science experiment that in the end went a bit off the rails. The technology, like all technology in the year 30,000, was recovered from parts unknown.

    You see, the whole Great Crusade was the process of re-uniting humanity after the “Age of Strife” of the preceding 5000 years that was basically the fall of the humanity. Turns out, humanity and the whole galaxy was pretty awesome for a long time, building a massive empire, having some wars, expanding across the stars, etc. And then things went… badly. Maybe it was psykers, maybe it was Chaos, maybe it was AI gone wrong, maybe it was all of that. But basically humans went all caveman, got trapped on all their various planets, and things went bad.

    Fast forward 5000 years, and the Emperor decides to build a bunch of new warriors (the Space Marines) to replace his old warriors (the Thunder Warriors) that he genocided because they were outliving particular usefulness and needed something new. But to make the new things stable and start his Great Crusade, he made 20 different progenitors, his Primarchs, to serve as the templates for the legions. I mean, presumably, before humanity was united and he decided to genocide them. Yeah, if there is one very constant thing in the lore of 40k, is that there is no bigger dick than the Emperor of Mankind.

    Once they were made, though, something happened – literally, that is the whole of the explanation – something happened and the infant Primarchs were abducted and scattered across the galaxy to different planets. Yeah, Warhammer thought it up well before JJ Abrams crapped out the worst plot basis of a Star Wars film with “somehow, Palpatine Returned.”

    All of the Primarchs were a reflection of the nature of their Legion. The Blood Angels weren’t called that just because Sanguinius was noble and hot, it’s because dude was noble, hot, and had wings. The Iron Hands were named because a writer was exceptionally busy one day. The Salamanders were named because Vulkan was on a lava planet and has dark ashen skin, is immune to fire, and really liked melta and flame weapons.

    Oh, yeah, so, that problematic part. Turns out that racial diversity wasn’t exactly the best thing in a setting written by a bunch of British guys in the 80s and 90s, so they were pretty mono-culture and tropey with some things. The Salamanders were the dark-skinned chapter, and the only ones ever portrayed like that for a long time. The White Scars had a similar issue, as I’d mentioned – the Blood Angels did as well on the opposite end, being done as white and blond because that’s how Sanguinius was shown (though was also described with brown hair).

    Obviously, the in-lore has been “because they’re with the fire” but still, not always the great look. Beyond that point, though, the Salamanders as a chapter do love their fire. And flamers, melta (guns that basically shoot balls of fusion energy), and guns like that. Their primarch also had an interesting habit of dying, and getting better. He was a Perpetual, so he would regenerate, return to life, or things like that.

    Which is how he managed to survive the Drop Site Massacre while his brother, Ferrus Manus, went the pro-level Ichabod Crane cosplay route. He didn’t exactly escape, though… since he ended up captured by one of the traitor Primarchs, Konrad Curze, who the one who was just flat out bad (and open about it) – like, murderous and brutal to the point of censure. He wasn’t seen as a hero like the rest, he was feared and loathed. Also, likely insane, because he could see the future, and that drove him mad. So he spent most of the Heresy killing Vulkan, having him come back, and killing him again. For fun. Eventually, Vulkan escaped, died a few more times… including once by traveling to the Ultramarines homeworld. As in the surface of the planet. From Space. Without a ship.

    He got better, eventually.

    While none of his chapter seem to have gotten the immortality bit, they absolutely revere their Primarch, because, let’s be honest. Dude is a bit of a legend. He vanished after the heresy, but left a bunch of clues around that the Salamanders are convinced they need to find in order to bring about his return. So basically, the Salamanders are about flamers, melta guns, hugs, massive wars, and scavenger hunts.

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  • FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 17

    FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 17

    Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

     

    Ace got the dud yesterday while Nick and Eric were pleasantly surprised by their builds, before Nick was distracted by a shiny marine and Eric burst into flames.

    • Star Wars: 9 Hits / 7 Misses
    • Harry Potter: 7 Hits / 9 Misses
    • Marvel: 8 Hits / 8 Misses

    LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

    And here’s the man behind the curtain. Or in this case, the Snowtrooper behind the weapons rack and shooting hole. Except here, he already has a weapon. So what’s with the stud shooter? A backup weapon? I don’t know. I’m not a fan of the weapons-rack-one-day-and-trooper-minifg-the-next combo deal we seem to get annually. I should have taken a pic of the head under the cowl because it wasn’t the usual fleshy head we get. I think the only thing that could make the Snowtrooper better is if it came with a soft goods skirt. I’m rambling I know. I’m trying to figure out if I like this figure or not. It’s not the shirtless Stormtrooper I theorized we were going to get, so I guess it’s a pleasant surprise. Thumbs up it is then.

    In other news, my other calendar came. I’ll probably be able to get all the posts updated by Monday.

    LEGO Harry Potter  / Hot Sauces (Eric)

    Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

    Okay, full disclosure: I did an inventory of the sauces remaining. Now that the reaper’s behind us – I think it’s smooth sailing. I might not even need milk. Thank God, because this holiday is stressful enough already.

    Wow what a build. WOW. By far the worst so far – it’s supposed to be a bowl. It’s not a bowl. It’s a button. This is like a first draft build, and I am shocked that this is the one LEGO went with. Again, Half-Bl ood Prince is not the greatest movie, but there are still some good scenes to adapt. But nope – couch man and bad bowl are all we get.

    I mean, seriously? That’s all I’ve got to say.

    But shout out to today’s hot sauce – PINEAPPLE PAPAYA BBQ. One of the few sauces that is actually really good.

    LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

    I look at this and suddenly the Frozen song flies into my head, but honestly, I don’t want to build a snowman. I should love this thing, but… I just don’t. Yes, it’s holiday, and on theme, but the proportions on it are just so weird. The giant arms, with the tiny center, together, it just looks off. That it’s Thanos is a nice, but even a tiny something like snowballs, or a target, or something else to jazz it up would help. I don’t know how they could grow the bottom or the center more to fix the proportions, either, or maybe make it taller, but it needed something. It was close, but still feels more a miss than a hit.

    Anytime someone tells you that Warhammer 40k is a serious game, you have three things you you can always fall back on to deflate that argument in an instant:

    • There are characters named Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau, Sly Marbo, and of course the previously named Ferrus Manus and Corvus Corax
    • There is a Necron character, Trazyn the Infinite, that quite literally, is a Pokemon master, except instead of Pokemon it’s basically… anything
    • There is a Space Marine chapter called the Carcharodons, also called the Space Sharks

    They may be two different chapters, or they may be the same chapter, 40k is all hinged on both the unreliable narrator overall and the fact that there are contradictions all over the place. The timescales, the distance, and the sheer amount of things happening fill it all with things that change or may not make sense.

    That whole unreliable nature comes big into play, making these either a new (2nd founding – or just after the Heresy) or 23rd founding (37th millennium). They’re a fleet-based chapter, and until very recently, didn’t even operate around a home base, instead just moving as a nomad fleet from engagement to engagement. They also tended to really lean into the whole shark thing and decorate their armor with scrimshaws and talismans, which, you know, is a look. YouTube painter Dana Howl did probably the best conversion of one of a Carcharodon marine you will ever see.

    Like a lot of the other successor chapters we’ve gotten that have showed up in Black Library stories or supplemental books, the Carcharodons were involved in the Badab War. That conflict was one of the larger ones in more recent years which did not involve the old-school traitors, instead making new ones and involved a bunch of marines intentionally, and accidentally, turning against the Imperium. Most of these happen in a great old series called “Imperial Armor” – which unfortunately Games Workshop has repurposed as a book for people (like me) that provides rules ludicrously overpriced resin models from ForgeWorld, but no longer have the buckets of lore that they used to. Maybe with the recent move away from Resin and stuff increasingly moving to plastic (thanks to the relaunch of Horus Heresy under the GW banner), it can come back.

    And with it, the Space Sharks can reign supreme!

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  • FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 16

    FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022 Day 16

    Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

     

    We’re in real danger of Marvel managing to pull even here, while the Harry Potter advent is trying its hardest to be awful. Poor thing, you can never be as awful as your namesake’s author is, no matter how hard you try.

    • Star Wars: 9 Hits / 6 Misses
    • Harry Potter: 6 Hits / 9 Misses
    • Marvel: 7 Hits / 8 Misses

    LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

    Oh look: a weapons cache! The blaster is mounted to the side of the window that I guess you’re supposed to shoot though. There’s a little pocket with two more 1×1 stud ammo pieces. There’s also a mouse droid. The mouse droid is made up by a 1×1 tile and a minifig rollerskate. It’s the best thing about the build. I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see what we get. I’d guess a Snowtrooper but given we got Beach Shirt Vader, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a shirtless Stormtrooper or something similarly beachy. But without tomorrow’s build, by itself, it sucks no matter how endearing that mouse droid is.

    LEGO Harry Potter  / Hot Sauces (Eric)

    Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

    Today we start with the Half-Blood Prince. You know, this calendar more than any other really makes me want to watch the movies and write up reviews. Might be a good idea for 2023 – I’ll think on it.

    Anyway, let’s see what the first build is!

    To be fair, I can think of only one good set piece from this movie, and I bet LEGO felt the same way (although we’ll see what tomorrow is) – so they threw in a second minifig: Horace Slughorn. The couch version.

    If you’re very confused, he’s hiding from the bad guys. Harry and Dumbledore show up, and his head pops out of a couch. Apparently LEGO really liked this moment since I’m pretty sure you can also play as couch-Slughorn in the LEGO Harry Potter video game, too.

    Personally, I like it. I like his dumb smile. It’s like he’s saying “yes, I know I’m a couch. I know this is stupid.” Plus, it beats LEGO throwing in, like, the Hogwarts Express because they didn’t have any better option for this bland movie.

    Today’s hot sauce is called SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. Which, to be fair, is pretty much how the inside of my mouth felt. This is one of the hottest ones so far. Not ghost pepper hot, but right below that line.

    I wonder what we’ll get tomorrow…

    LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

    Okay, this isn’t a Christmas build. I’m honestly not sure it’s even a mini build… it’s just a great little build. This is a solid little thing and better than any of the little radios that ever got put into the Milano or the Benatar. It’s simple but fun, and a welcome change from all the awful we’ve gotten overall. Somehow, inexplicably, this calendar has managed three good things in a row.

    It takes something rather spectacular in the galaxy of 40k to get the word “cursed” attached to something, but the 21st Founding of Space Marines somehow managed that. In the 36th millennium, the Imperium, for reasons, decided they needed more armored seven foot tall giants around to get to murdering heretics and xenos scum. Several new chapters were formed…

    • The Lamenters, a Blood Angels Successor who don’t have the Flaw or fall to the Black Rage, yet replaced that with perhaps the worst luck in the entire Galaxy
    • The Black Dragons, who are effectively mutants in a galaxy where “Burn the Heretic” and “Kill the Unclean” is used like “hello”
    • The Fire Hawks, who are thought to have been wiped out, and who may or may not be the Legion of the Damned, a near mystical force that’s trapped between life and death and can strike fear into even the most hardened warrior
    • The Sons of Antaeus, who are supposedly an Ultramarines successor, that have a curious habit of being much more like like the traitorous Death Guard in that they’re very hard to kill and shrug off a lot of disease and poisons

    And, of course, our Copper-colored boys up there, the Minotaurs. Fun fact about the history of the Minotaurs, not even the Inquisition can dig into it. And they’re effectively like if someone decided to make a character by blending together Judge Dread, the Pope, Gandalf, and Magneto with far more questionable morals and an unshakeable believe that everything they did was right and critical to the survival of the Imperium. For some context, Inquisitors have the ability to end a planet without question, via Exterminatus. Full commanders in the Imperial Fleet, a High Lord of Terra, or someone like that can jump through hoops to do it, but an Inquisitor can just go “okay, no, this is too far, end it.”

    And they’re not allowed to find out what the Minotaurs were all about back then. But hey, they’re totally cool now, and have been for a couple thousand years. It’s unknown who their Primarch was or what chapter they were formed from, and even their geneseed tithe -every space marine has two organs implanted to “grow” the material for the next generation of Space Marines – is sealed and protected.

    While they follow the precepts of the Codex Astartes, they don’t divide their forces, they move as a whole Chapter, rather than company, as most others do. So when they deploy, they deploy in force. The Codex Astartes limited a Chapter to 1000 battle brothers, give or take (everyone, even the Ultramarines, finds ways to wiggle around that number), and a company has 100 brothers in it, divided into 10 chapters. A squad of marines is as powerful as some armies, a company is enough to secure most planets, but bringing an entire chapter every time an engagement starts… that’s just saying this bolter only shows up to chew bubble gum and smite the enemies of the Emperor.

    And bubble gum has been declared heretical by order of the Emperor.

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