Pandemic diary: February

It's almost been a year now since the pandemic started; my first diary post was last March. The previous one was my end-of-year post, where I talked briefly about the moaning from our event industry. Sadly, a far bigger problem is the restaurant and tourism businesses, who have actually succeeded in lobbying government so hard that despite infections constantly going up and the UK variant of the coronavirus now spreading in Finland, bars and restaurants are open, and there are no effective border controls in terms of testing or quarantine. The result is that cases have barely receded from the Yuletide peak, and are going up again.

It's been demonstrated over and over again that the choice between suppressing the pandemic and protecting the economy was a false one; the countries with the most deaths also took the biggest economic hit, and quite frankly, you do need to have a very strange notion of what the economy is to be very surprised by that. All our economies run on private consumption, after all, and we're not very likely to consume much if it comes with a significant chance of catching a pandemic disease. Right now, I'm afraid we're going to be presenting Act 2 of this fallacy: to spare our hospitality industry some short-term loss, we've abandoned suppressing the pandemic - which means the long-term losses are going to be much greater than they would otherwise have been. In money and in lives.

So far, Finnish pandemic policy has been a weird ride. First we were very slow to take any of this at all seriously; we even had officials telling us that Finland won't be affected at all. We were very late to recommend facemasks or anything like that. Then our government did take action, and as a result of that, the total deaths and economic damage are still of a different order of magnitude than, say, Sweden. But now it looks like our social democrat-led government has decided that the hospitality business is more important than national health, and we'll all be paying for it.

We're also making a fairly big bet on the vaccination program being a success. If it isn't, we may still be dealing with this pandemic next year.

In personal terms, I've already had one lecture course cancelled, and have started teaching business school prep online. The way things look right now, I feel like the only reasonable course of action is to assume that we're not going to be able to teach live all spring. Which absolutely sucks, but here we are. The worst-case scenario in terms of my work is that we're going to stay remote all spring, spend another summer pretending the pandemic went away, and lock down again in the fall. Quite apart from my working life, I would also really, really like to have a social life again, thank you very much, but at this rate that'll be something to look forward to in 2022 - or later.

To finish on an upbeat note, though, at least we've had a proper winter for once! We've had actual snow for well over a month now, with surprising amounts of sunshine. It's been a real joy, especially after the previous winter, which literally felt like five consecutive Novembers.

Stay safe, everyone.

Blood Bowl: Star players and staff

While I was looking for my ancient plastic orcs, I made an unexpected Blood Bowl discovery. That's a poorly painted Zara the Slayer on the left, but the model on the right was a total mystery to me.

Apparently I have, at some point, made a conversion out of a 1988 Chaos Champion and Flint Churnblade, to create a model for Max Spleenripper. I mean I also found all the leftover bits, so clearly I made this model, but I have no memory of doing so at all. I tidied them both up a bit.

I also have a 1994 vintage Norse Blitzer, who I've converted into Helmut Wulf, an intact copy of Flint Churnblade, and a skeleton fellow who must be Hack Enslash. I can't remember why I had such a thing for chainsaws back whenever this was. Doom, probably. He's joined by a 2003 Elf Blitzer who I've painted up as Eldril Sidewinder.

This guy, on the other hand, is a fairly ancient dwarf adventurer, who I vaguely recall I was going to use as an assistant coach.

Finally in my old model roundup, I made these two delightful wizards for Blood Bowl use, and it was high time they, too, got painted.

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In more recent decades, I ordered some orcs from Kromlech, and they were kind enough to include a complementary Goblin Nurse with our order, so I assembled him for use as a Blood Bowl Apothecary.

I also got a pair of Beer Garden Beauties from Impact Miniatures, to use as Bloodweiser Babes.

And Impact's Halfling Hot Dog Vendor was perfect for a Halfling Master Chef.

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Earlier, I got some Hungry Troll miniatures, and painted up a couple of their goblins for my stands. I have to say, though, that I was very disappointed in the quality of their multi-part metal miniatures. I really like their Shark Troll, but it came in four parts which, quite frankly, do not fit together. Even after quite a bit of filing, there was simply no way to glue the right hand or head on without leaving horrible gaps.

Trying to attach the tail was so hopeless I gave up. It's a real shame, because this is a nicely sculpted miniature, but it's just badly made. I actually threw away a goblin I ordered because there was just no way to make the hands fit the arms without gaps so massive that it almost looked like I was trying to fit the wrong bits together. So I'd avoid the multi-part kits. Here's the finished shark troll:

I'm bummed, because the models are quite characterful and I wanted to like them. I'm happy G.P. LeChuck here came in one piece!

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I'd also like to introduce some new spectators. Here's a working lady from Warlord's Pike and Shotte Townsfolk:

A Warmonger Plague Doctor and some Vampires:

And a Warhammer Fantasy Minotaur and Bad Squiddo's Freya for the back row.

I also added some goblins: a Goblin Hooligan and Goblin #4 from Hungry Troll miniatures, as well as two fellows from Warmonger's lovely Goblin Drunks set.

And a Foundry police constable and Shadowforge Gridiron Medical Officer round out the back rows.

Finally, I'm delighted to introduce my first Mithril Miniatures: Pippin and Bergil! Back in the day, our friendly local gaming store had a huge wall of these blister packs, and it was a joy to find them still sold online. Bergil is dressed in somber grey, as appropriate for the declining death-city of Minas Tirith, while Peregrin is in uniform.

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So here we are, hoping that the pandemic subsides enough that we can play some more Blood Bowl soon!

Warhammer 40,000: Forge World Nchurdamz

Put down your ardent cutting-globes, Nbthld. Your Aldmeris has the correct words, but they cannot be properly misinterpreted.
- note in Hanging Gardens of Wasten Coridale

I've wanted to build some Mechanicus models ever since I got into Warhammer again and found out they had a proper army. Like the Custodes, the Machine Cult are such an iconic part of the Imperium of Man that I want to own some. I got an excuse to start by buying a box of Skitarii to get our Rogue Trader Explorator an appropriate backpack, and it sort of took off from there.

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Because I'm entirely too fond of Morrowind, my Skitarii are going to be from forge world Nchurdamz. If I ever use these guys in 40k, I think I'll be going with the Stygies VIII dogma, so I'm painting everyone in the traditional rusty red, with black contrast in keeping with Stygies VIII and the inevitable green because they're my models. Fluffwise, Nchurdamz is a forge world established by Stygies VIII to study the unthinkably ancient xenos ruins in the Acheron sector.

The first unit I made was a minimum-sized squad of Skitarii Rangers with a transuranic arquebus.

Two of the Rangers have Statuesque bionic heads, and one has an Anvil female cultist head. Both work great with the Skitarii miniatures, but the Statuesque bionic heads are especially excellent. The plastic Skitarii kit is also top notch: the models are quite characterful, they're easy to convert, and because there's parts for both Rangers and Vanguard, there's loads of leftover bits. Very good value for money in the current pricing scheme.

I wanted to do something a little bit different for an HQ choice, so I made an Enginseer by combining one of Raging Heroes' Davidians Command with a Zealot power axe. I'm very happy with the result!

So this is already a little patrol detachment of machine cultists! I made the rest of the Skitarii into Vanguards, with a couple more Statuesque heads.

And here's our Explorator all painted up; he can double as an Adeptus Mechanicus HQ if needed.

With two characters and two squads, I'd only need another box of Skitarii for a little 8th ed. battalion detachment. However, what I really want to have is a pair of Kastelan robots. They're very impressive in Gladius, especially if you have the misfortune of encountering them in the early game, and I really like the retro-scifi aesthetic. I went for the triple phosphorous blasters because hey, more is more.

The robots come with a Datasmith. My problem is that these days, anything with a -smith suffix only ever makes me think of the cocksmiths from Oglaf (very NSFW). I still built one, though, with a Statuesque bionic head.

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So here's a tiny little Machine Cult detachment! I'm quite happy with it, and that's another miniature project finished. Although this was fun enough that I might pick up a couple more robots; I've also had my eye on an Onager Dunecrawler for a while...

Let's Read Tolkien 77: The Steward and the King

Over the city of Gondor doubt and great dread had hung.

We rewind to the city of Minas Tirith, where for the second chapter in a row, a character is being incredibly goth and talking about how much they want to die. This time it's Éowyn, who is staying at the Houses of Healing and annoying the Warden. When he refuses to let her leave, she demands to see Faramir in his capacity as Steward, and complains to him that she isn't dead yet.

It turns out Faramir is into goths, because he now dedicates the rest of his time at the Houses of Healing to wooing Éowyn, up to and including interrogating Merry for intelligence. He persuades Éowyn to hang out, and so while high drama is happening in Mordor, they promenade about the gardens in Minas Tirith. Eventually a bird comes to tell everyone that the good guys won, and Faramir has to do actual work when Aragorn arrives to be crowned.

Now that he's king, Aragorn makes Faramir Prince of Ithilien - handing out lands to your best commanders is always nice in Crusader Kings 2 - and packs Beregond off with him. We then get some heavy symbolism when Gandalf and Aragorn find a new white tree for Minas Tirith in the mountains, and soon enough Elrond and his household show up, and Aragorn and Arwen get married.

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When I talked about Éowyn earlier, I quoted Tolkien's characterization of her as "not really a soldier or 'amazon', but like many brave women was capable of great military gallantry at a crisis" (Letters, 244). So while she can participate in war, even very gallantly, because she's a woman, she doesn't get to be a "real soldier" but rather a sort or Hostilities Only auxiliary. The way she abandons her military career in favor of more womanly pursuits is a stark reminder that Tolkien was no feminist: as soon as Éowyn finds "true love", she is content to withdraw to the domestic sphere. With the "taming" talk and everything, Tolkien comes perilously close to betraying the way Éowyn was portrayed when we first met her; it's almost as if her entire life as a shield-maiden was some kind of whim or aberration. So while it's cute that she and Faramir find each other, and they have some good moments together, there's an unpleasant feeling of a woman being put in her place about the whole thing.

Faramir's courtship of Éowyn is ridiculously short and simple compared to his king's. If you read Appendix A, you learn that Elrond's condition for Aragorn marrying Arwen was that he restore the kingdoms of the Númenorans, which incidentally makes her sound like a Crusader Kings achievement. Judging from the flag she made him, she was into it, but you can make a fair case that a more descriptive name for this whole epic novel would have been The Unreasonable Father-in-Law.

Like the previous chapter, this, too, is best described as short and triumphal. Tolkien is taking his time tying up all the threads of the story, and there's a certain satisfaction to it.

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Next time: a road trip.