Unfortunatly, Isaksen provides a prophecy early in the movie, as he states "a sequel never lives up to the original".  Granted, somethimes this isn't true (Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, etc...) but more often than not it is indeed so.

 

We come back to our heroine of the first movie, Nora, now living remotely in the wilds three years after her encounter with the Troll king.  But she is recruited by her friend to come to a goverment facility for a new discovery: another troll is being held there!  She accidentally awakens him, and where the first movie was about a troll just wanting to get home, this one wants to level Norway.  Soon a second troll appears, as Nora had contact with the son of the Troll King and had hid him, and the army must try to stop the monster that seems impervious to all weapons and countermeasures.

 

Add in a crazy old coot... I mean archeologist, and a mystical water source of King Olaf, who was held responsible for removing the trolls in the middle ages from Norway.  And then a document shows up, and it was all a misunderstanding in that the trolls didn't needed to be killed but given a home, but the chruch opposed this.  Epic battle with huge trolls take 2, magical water and finally a sacrifice of one of the leads and the big one is brought down...  

 

Yeah, that's a lot going on compared to the mysterious monster movie that was the original Troll.  They had a big budget (so far the biggest ever in Norwegian cinema) and wanted to go big.  Unfortunatly, it doesn't deliver, and feels more like a copy of King Kong vs Godzilla, but just, well, not that good.

 

 

 

Well, it lasted until... the 1st of january at 20.00 hrs, when I received the mail from Fantasy Welt with their new year sales, and went in to see if anything intresting was about.

 

I also ordered the Blood Bowl new edition rulebook, which I had held off until I was certain it didn't rested under the Chirstmas tree. 

 

 

As the resolution mentioned above was done for anyways, I did some shopping on Vinted, and found a Mindstealer Sphiranx.  Because another game, why not, maybe I get that RoR completed this year. 

 

 

 

Which was ooooh so calm with this cold weather! So we started in the small monkey building, because there it was nice and warm inside, excellent to start the day after the cold trip to the zoo itself.

 

To give an idea, just go look at my pictures of the Flemish garden all the way back in august, compared to the lovely snowy landscape it has now...

 

One thing one can admire while it is so calm though, is the architecture of the zoo buildings, some which are over 100 years old, while some like the birdhouse are modernised, but you can still see the walls of the original old building at the back of the cages.

 

The Zoo also has an artificially recreated cave system that can be explored behind the valley of the great apes, and which has a slide hidden in the dark.  Which I of course needed to try out once I found it.

 

This cavesystem brings you to the buffalo savannah, where there are also a lot of big birds, including a section they roam freely, so better watch out not to get any poo-poo on your clothes!

 

Our next stop was the Egyptian Temple, home to the inside eating and sleeping space for both the elephants and the giraffes.  And as it was so calm, we could get really, really close to the elephants who where having a snack! 

 

The newest inhabitants of the zoo, the pigmy hippotamus'ses, where relaxing in the water in their residence as well.

 

While the beaver rats didn't care as much at all about the temperatures, happily strolling outside. 

 

And it still was nice and cold...

 

In the reptile house I found myself eye-to-eye with a fascinating lizard.  Well, it required some bending to get to eye level, but you catch my drift!

 

After passing some more lizards, including the Komodo dragon, we went to the next section of the building.

 

And that is an open area of giant tortoises and lizards, and they can be found really close at times for sure!

 

There was also a single lion that apparently had drewn the short straw, as she was outside while all the others lounged in their building.

  

And I got to meet an actual flemish television celebrity, Jos de Koffervis.  He became popular due to a documentary series detailing the life of the animals behind the screens here on television, and he was enjoying his big aquarium for sure. 

 

The last remnants of the Magical Oceans light festival could still be seen in the Zoo, the event had ended the weekend before and was still in the process of deconstruction.  Next year we'll visit this, but due to circumstances hadn't made it for the 2025 edition. 

  

 

 

And then it was time to round off with a quick snack to get the temperatures up again, some french fries for me, and onion soup for mommy and daddy. 

 

And thus a stroll to get a fresh nose came to an end, enjoyable if chilly but it is great fun to have the place nearly completely to ourselves though!

 

 

 

 

Now, that is one of the issues I want to adress immediately for this series.  If you rolled into it after seeing her appear in The Mandalorian, you might want to know more about her.  But the series draws heavily on the Clone Wars series, as it is an actual continuation on that storyline.

 

What I can say though, the thread of Grand Admiral Thrawn returning is one that has been a long time in the Star Wars now "extended" canon of pre-Disney novels.  If you haven't, go read the Heir to the Empire series, and you will see a figure even more intimidating then the one depicted in this series.  

 

Central to the series is on the one hand the rumoured return of the admiral, as well as finding back Ezra Bridger, the padawan turned Jedi from the above named animated series.  Sabine Wren still isn't over his disappearance, and goes out to search for him, together with Ahsoka who wants to prevent Morgan Elsbeth, assisted by Baylan Skoll and his apprentice Shin Hati.  Old Imperial agents are trying to adapt to the new Galactic Republic, but not all agree and want to bring back Thrawn.

 

What follows is first a journey to discover where the grand admiral, and by extension Ezra, went, and once they reached that destination by spacewhale taxi services, the story to try and stop Thrawn returning to the galaxy.  Needless to say, they fail on both accounts, the series ending with Thrawn on the way back and Ahsoka and her friends stranded on a far away planet.

 

It was an enjoyable series, with some nice lightsaber duelling, which is after all what Star Wars is all about.  The arcs for the characters have started to bloom, both from the "light" and the "dark" side, but it will be needed to see the second season come to fruition on how those pan out.  Though sadly, that will be with a recasted Baylan, as Ray Stevenson left us in 2023 unfortunatly.

 

 

 

But first off, most of the episodes are short, barely hitting the 30 minute mark... but as I had holidays in the final week of last year and the first of this year, some serious binging has been done while recuperating from just to much holiday seasonal food...

 

Now, what we have here is a great fun series, with an excellent Tatiana Maslany in the lead role of lawyer Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk, who turned a member of the "green powerhouse family" by an accidental blood transfer from her cousin Bruce Banner.  Except she has better control over her powers.  And Hulk isn't the only character to make the cross-over into this series, as Abomination, Wong, and even Daredevil (nicely tying the Netflix series more into the MCU) also make their appearances.

 

The series also breaks the fourth wall often in a Deadpool style, as Jen comments to the viewers on that this is "her" show, and not a thing to bring back various other characters, even going as far in the finale that she meets an AI called K.E.V.I.N. to discuss how it is written and played out (a wink to MCU head honcho Kevin Feige).  To be honest, this was perhaps just a bit taking it to far to take the series "serious", in how you of course can do so for a bunch of superpowered people smashing each other around.

 

We get a nine episode series as such with a lot of politics as someone called the "Hulkking" is out to bring She-Hulk down, a romance between Jennifer and Matt Murdock in her hopeless dating life, and some hilarious courtroom action as well.  And a great appearance by the most awesome villains of all, The Wrecking Crew!

 

This is definitly one of the funnier Marvel MCU series that they produced, and it might still be that a second season will be made, though no greenlight (no pun inteded) on that one so far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I brought my Idoneth Deepkin, and on purpose took something of about everything to have a look at how things worked.  A unit of Legends because I allow them from the go in the Escalation League  and contains a wizard, a Regiment of Renown,  cavalry and infantry, and a monstrous mount.  Guess bar war machines / shooting units and a priest, I managed to cover all bases.

 

My force was organised as follows:

 

Regiment 1: An Akhelian King on Deepmare with the Armour of Cythai and the Form of Fangmora, an Allopex with a Razorshell Harpoon and a unit of 3 Morrsarr Guard with full command.

 

Regiment 2: An Akhelian Thrallmaster (Ghyran version), 10 Namarti Thralls (Ghyran version) with champion, and Cyreni's Razors from the Legends section

 

Regiment 3: A Stumblefoot Giant regiment of renown.

 

And I picked the Akhelian Beastmaster battle formation with Wrathful Cycles and Scouting Force battleplans. 

 

Facing me was Noah with a force of Slaves to Darkness, consisting of two drops.

 

Regiment 1: Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount with Radiance of Dark Glory, a regiment of Chaos Knights

 

Regiment 2: Chaos Lord with Head of the Unworthy, a unit of Chaos Chosen with the Dread Banner and a unit of Chaos Warriors.

 

He had Master the Paths and Intercept and Recover as Battletactics suite, and my Thralls, Taskmaster and Cyreni's Razors carried the treasure. 

 

So with both forces drawn up and ready for action, it was time to begin hostilities. 

 

Cyreni immediatly had herself and the Razors Steed of Tides to the other side of the battlefield (mind you, they actually deployed further to the side edge, but I was still placing them while making the picture), in order to either cause a distraction or go for the objective on the back of his lines.   

 

The rest of the force advanced through the center, to claim both the large objective as well as completing the first step of my Scouting Force battle tactic, where I need three units out of my friendly territory.

 

The enemy however responded to this, and started to advance both over my flank and my center.

 

The Morsarr redeployed, to make the charge range for the Knights over 9" in the hopes they will fail this above average roll to reach me. 

 

However, he rolled a 12 (disclaimer: he only once NOT roll 11 or 12 for his charges in this game), and a big melee erupted in the center, between the Slaves to Darkness hero, warriors, chosen ones and knights on the one hand, and my Akhelian King, Morsarr Guard, Allopex and Giant on the other side.  This didn't look all to good though for the Idoneth...

 

 But while the shark was killed by the Chosen Ones, the line managed to hold on... only to have "Paddy" the Stumblefoot Giant go crazy, stuffing a Chosen One in his bag, and smashing, kicking and headbutting enemies left and right.  Something the Aelves however failed to do so...

 

This resulted in an impressive 17-5 benefit for the Idoneth after the first battle round.

 

In order to try and swing the balance a bit, the Akhelian Thrallmaster and the Thralls moved in to join the fight.

 

As they also entered the melee, hopefully their numbers could tip over the balance and together with the gaint destroy the final Chosen Ones and the knights. 

 

However, the Slaves to Darkness really spiked at this moment.  The warriors slaughtered ALL the Thralls and the Taskmaster due to the ability with the Lord, while even though the Giant put one Chosen in his bag again, both the last Chosen and the Knights spiked on their defence and saved each and every wound inflicted.  This was going to cost me the game, as instead of removing one, probably two units from his side, the freaky dice instead deleted two of mine, which also gave him two treasure tokens for additional VP's.

 

 In his turn, the Giant was finally taken down, soon followed by the last of the Morsarr and my King, as I failed about every saving throw I needed to take.  The battle was as good as over, though I still had a small chance.

 

In the back, Cyreni's Razors kept tagging objectives, and I still managed to be in front 27-17 after this round.  If I could play hide-and-seek for three more turns, I might draw out a small victory, but it would become a close affair.

 

Using both my Steed of Tides and my Tides switching, the Razors kept dancing around the field, trying to escape from the mighty Chaos forces while "lighting up" objectives where able. After round three though, I still was in the lead with 37-27.

 

But the Chaos forces started to disperse and claim more and more of them, so they will be forcing my hand in the final turn for certain, but as the chessgame continued during the fourth round, the Razors managed to still keep it at 45-42, it would be close.

 

Well, so close that I actually needed to charge his last knight in the final round, and I failed to roll a 9... coming out with an 8... TWICE!  Oh bugger, this will cost me the game now as I can't prevent him from scoring more then 8 in the last round.  Had I succeeded in the charge, I could have stolen a few points, and had I remained alive it would have come down to some moves on his part for a very close game, which would probably end with 2 or 3 points in one side or the others favour. However, now the Chosen, who had rallied almost back to full strength, charged in and decimated the Razors on the final moments, grabbing their token and scoring a round of 20, resulting in a 45-62 win for the Chaos force.

 

So this was tense, and I still am in doubt wether I would have needed to move as far forward for that high scoring turn 1 that put me far in the lead until the very last turn, or hold back a bit.  Either decision in my case could have worked out, but what did me in was the "double spike" both offensively and defensively for the Chaos troops in turn 2, which literally broke the back of my full army.