After many trials and tribulations our Dwarven Forge Wildlands Kickstarter pledge has finally arrived… sort of.
This Kickstarter has suffered many delays, like many Kickstarters over the past couple of years thanks to the current global situation. Our pledge has had a few more delays than others thanks to the Customs Office here in Germany. It has gone from China to Germany (with a Customs hold), then to the USA and finally back to Germany (with another Customs hold)…. and finally to us.
My understanding is that of the 3,526 backers we were among the last 10 to get ours but still the wait continues…
… because it arrived shortly before Mrs. GG had to go out of town for a seminar! So it looks like our boxing will have to wait a few more days…until Friday most likely while little GG is at school.
As you can see it is quite a large pledge. Five big, heavy boxes of hopefully wonderful factory painted Dwarvenite terrain.
If you are not familiar with Dwarven Forge Wildlands….
We are incredibly excited about this. Since Covid made our yearly holiday somewhat problematic we added our holiday budget to our gaming budget to really “push the boat out” on our pledge. We could not afford everything we wanted but we managed to scrape together enough money to spoil ourselves with some of our favorite pieces.
You can expect some photos of our unboxing in the future.
In other news…
I finished the first season of the new Netflix live action Resident Evil tv series. It was disappointing. Some cool giant monsters and Lance Reddick is a very talented actor that is a joy to watch. But in general a firmly mediocre post-apoc show with the poor writing really dragging it down at times. Burt and Albert were the only characters I liked enough to care about. Although Evelyn had potential to be a decent villain she just did not quite pull it off. Again I put that down to the writing as the actor came across as having the potential to make the character interesting.
The two sister protagonists annoyed me both as teens and adults. Actually more than annoyed me. I actively disliked them. The longer I watched them the more I disliked them. The split timeline narrative technique just made it worse. That is barely acceptable for an opening episode to establish some background but a whole season of it? Ugh!
Overall it felt like a fan fiction web series. Not the worst way to spend time but not something I would highly recommend unless you have spare time to waste on it. There were a couple of clever ideas but nothing tied those ideas together well enough to create any kind of suspension of disbelief. The obvious cliff hanger ending makes it clear they planned a second season but no idea if this season can generate enough viewers to make that financially viable.
Of course that is just my opinion.
But tell me… what did you think?
Home of the Grumpy Gnome 
I’m happy for you on the Kickstarter! That is very exciting after such a long wait.
Here’s my “hot” take. Resident Evil is best in video game form. I don’t know why Capcom keeps trying to make TV and movie shows out of it. The stories in the game aren’t really anything special but the great gameplay and graphics (and the whacky characters!) make it a blast to play. I’ve not tried to watch any RE content outside of the video games because of this. If you have the means, play Resident Evil 4. Its pretty old now but still a masterpiece in video gaming, I think!
LikeLiked by 1 person
TV adaptations of video games always seem doomed… I hope the Fallout TV series breaks that trend. The thing is I think a Resident Evil movie could work, it just needs good writers steeped in the lore of the IP. I have not seen the Halo TV series yet but I have heard it is a mess.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kuribo, I actually liked Resident Evil 2 on the playstation 2 the best 😁 To get my fix in now I play RE5.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I haven’t seen it myself as some YouTubers I respect pointed out a lot of strange fallacies in the show. The main one being how two kids were able to access a high security building so easily. Even if they had a full access badge, the lack of physical security personnel, cameras, etc. to allow them to move freely all over the place and get into the trouble they did. I do not know if that is how it was but it is what the reviewers pointed out.
I’m having a hard time with shows, books, etc. that have very glaring WTF moments in them. Just not willing to allow the writers to get away with such laziness just to advance the story.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, that is an example of the thoughtless writing. It just made no sense at all. That is the thing with suspension of disbelief and immersion, it requires hard work. You have to build a believable world that makes sense as much as possible… and it becomes increasingly more important the more outlandish the elements you want to add, ie zombies, advanced technology, hyper-competent children etc etc. As usual your thoughts run parallel to mine mate!
LikeLike
I powered through the show, I almost quit the show after the sixth episode but decided to finish it. The split timeline was really annoying and for the most part unnecessary. Didn’t care for the sisters young or old, really don’t care if they have a season 2.
Anxious to see the grand opening of your boxes, looking forward to the boards you can make.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have never really gotten into the Resident Evil games and am a bit confused by all the different Resident Evil movies/tv shows, what with the anime and live action. My take on the IP is mixed.
Umbrella Corporation is an interesting plot device villain organization although Umbrella in the Netflix RE seems… rather pathetically incompetent compared to previous versions I have seen.
The laser trap in one of the live action movies that sliced and diced people haunts me to this day. I prefer slow zombies to fast mutant monsters but I do like giant insect/spider monsters in general. I never thought a giant caterpillar would scare me but at least this Netflix RE brought me that… although why it seemed more intent on playing with her rather than eating her does not make much sense to me if the thing is no longer vegetarian.
How do giant predators survive in the RE universe? What do they eat?
It was impressive how the Netflix RE actually got worse with each episode.
I did not give enough credit to the show for having the comedic, overweight villain also be surprisingly something of a John Wick for awhile…. up until he wasn’t. Being overweight myself these days it is kind of nice to see an overweight guy being a bit of a badass. It would have been nice to have him actually get more of a character arc though. The concept had potential and the actor managed to just about convince me to enjoy hating him. Unlike the Umbrella head of security in the earlier timeline that was utterly forgettable.
Watch Valley of the Dead, the Spanish Civil War Zombie Movie. I do not think you will find it time wasted but I do think you will see some ways it could have been better. It is not Shaun of the Dead good but it is entertaining.
LikeLike
I thought the creatures were well done, but everytime you got in the moment of them the show would switch timelines and take you out of it. The directors failed to realize the reality of today’s watchers, it doesn’t take much to lose interest and start looking at your phone or doing something else and harder to get you back engaged in the show. If one part of the show (in this case, to me it was the constant timeline switching) doesn’t work, the show doesn’t work.
I enjoyed the use of drones in the last episode until it had endless ammunition, I thought shows had got pass that trope. The black clad guards just standing out in the open kinda ruined it for me also. Having to change clips adds to the suspense but they seemed to have forgotten that.
If you ever find time to read, I recommend Max Brooks Devolution. After Mt. Rainier erupts, a small isolated group of houses is under threat by a troop of Sasquatches. It is better than that sounds 😄. The people had become reliant on modern technology and find themselves having to adapt to prepare to survive the lack of food delivery, etc, and later defend themselves. I found it quite an engaging and thoughtful novel.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I quite agree with you.
And when the drones starting shooting Umbrella guards I figured one of them would at least try to shoot her. That is the thing about that show… it felt like there was no conscious effort to consider what would be reasonable decisions by the characters. How was that tent safe in an environment that potentially had giant burrowing monsters? Why did the helicopters not take off sooner. Why were they not closer to the tent? Why not have constant air cover for the meeting? Why wear armor that does not appear to protect you from anything? On and on and on.
I am a big Max Brook fan so will look out for that. Years ago I had a police colleague in the Seattle area that took searching for Big Foot very seriously. Apparently there is genuinely compelling evidence out there in certain circles according to him… but I admit I took what he said with a big pinch of salt so to speak.
What I like about Max Brooks is that he is the kind of writer who asks all kinds of questions when he does his world building so he makes it easier to suspend disbelief.
LikeLike