Age of Sigmar - Hedonites of Slaanesh Spearhead Box

 I did a thing... 

I fell for all the hype surrounding the immanent release of the new edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar.... 

In the upcoming new edition, there is a new format of play called "Spearhead". It is similar to the Combat Patrol format of play in Warhammer 40,000 Tenth Edition - where there are set army lists for each faction that you play with - each, conveniently sold in a single box, at 30-35% off what it would cost to buy them separately. 

For the new edition of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar all of the old Vanguard boxes will be the Spearhead forces at the start of the new edition (and some new Spearhead boxes will probably be released as they release new battletomes over the next few years..?)  These are generally about 600 points worth of stuff (give or take) - consisting of a Hero/Leader of some sort and two to four units - often one foot, one mounted - if there are such troop types in the given factions forces. 

I think it's meant to be a "gateway" game, but that's really the size of game I most prefer playing these days - something bigger than a tiny skirmish, but smaller than a HUGE EPIC BATTLE. I really enjoyed are small short games in the Paths of Glory campaign that Finnegan and I played in just after Third Edition was released. I know there will be a Spearhead league at the Warhammer store after the Fourth Edition release, so I though I'd make sure I had one together by then! 

Unfortunately, looking at the forces in all the boxes, I wasn't really even close to having the appropriate troops for ANY of them - despite having around a half-dozen different faction forces of 500-600 (or more) points... The closest I am is Daughters of Khaine - I have the Melusai Ironscale (the leader) and the Blood Stalkers... I'd still need to buy a box of Witch Aelves, and a box of Doomfire Warlocks (those two boxes on their own would be $130CAD... the whole Spearhead box is $175CAD... I'd rather just buy a Spearhead box and have an extra Melusai Ironscale and another unit of Blood Stalkers!?) 

Despite having 1675 points of Slaanesh Daemons, I couldn't even put together a Spearhead force of THOSE!? Turns out ALL of the Chaos forces Vanguard/Spearhead boxes are mostly made up of MORTAL elements - not the Daemons (which is what I primarily have!)... 

So if I was going to have to buy one.. which one to get...? Buy one for a faction that I already HAVE - building it up even larger...!? Or start something entirely NEW! 

I did consider the above mentioned Hedonites of Slaanesh and Daughters of Khaine for the former reason (add to stuff I already have). 

I also considered the Blades of Khorne for the same reason - I have a pile of Khorne Daemons and three Khorne Warbands for Warhammer Underworlds - which total well over 1000 points - the contents of the Vanguard box would have brought that to nearly 2000!? (Blood for the Blood God!)

I seriously considered the Soulblight Gravelords, again, largely because I have a considerable force of those already - just from the contents of Warhammer Quest: Cursed City... Those along with the Crimson Court (Warhammer Underworlds Warband) already make up over 1000 points... Some of the Vanguard/Spearhead box would be useful for Warhammer Quest: Cursed City (more city guard, and the Vampire lord contained in the box is one of the suggested models for the Night Wars expansion). With the other stuff I'll eventually need for Night Wars, and what I have , and the Vanguard box... I'd be over 2000 points worth of stuff!? 

There were a few others I briefly considered - Things that would be entirely new - other than, possibly, one or two Warhammer Underworlds warbands... Idoneth Deepkin, Seraphon, Flesh-Eater Courts, Sylvaneth, Lumineth Realm-Lords, Gloomspite Gitz... I only seriously considered Flesh-Eater Courts, Sylvaneth, and Gloomspite Gitz... 

Flesh-Eater Courts were considered because I know there is a bunch of content in White Dwarf magazines for Warhammer Quest: Cursed City for the Dlesh Eater Courts (and I do have two Warahmmer Underworlds warbands, and a few other older things...) 

Sylvaneth... just because they look cool... Also, one of the models in the Vanguard box are playable characters in Soulbound... 

The Gloomspite Gitz Spearhead box... well, that was just because they're so silly and fun... I had a riot painting Grinkrack's Looncourt! I also have Zarbag's Gitz and a Squigherd... and I think they Gobapalooza looks funny and will someday pick that up, regardless if I ever have an army of these... but damn, there are a LOT of them! probably the largest of the Vanguard boxes - in terms of number of troops. If you were painting the grots in their standard black robes and painted all the squigs standard red, it would probably go quickly... but that is NOT MY WAY!? 

In the end I went with the Hedonites... They looked interesting, but not too much effort to paint! I like all the minatures and they were all units that I had in the back of my mind that I'd like to add to my Hedonites of Slaanesh force ONE DAY - whenever I got back to playing and finished up all the Daemons. Well I'm not quite finished up all the Daemons... yet... I do plan on working them into the mix of things to work on this year... 

Soulblight is probably a close second... They're also interesting models... I could use some with Cursed City - or with Soulbound if I make use of the Ulfenkarn book - and follow up the Cursed City Warhammer Quest campaign with a role-playing campaign in the Realms of the Dead... In the end I didn't get them, partly because all the reasons stated above for getting Hedonites, but also I'm hoping I'll get to play Spearhead with a few of the people I'm already playing Wahammer Underworlds with and Nic will probably end up with a Soulblight Gravelords force... and there COULD be two, rival Vampire Lords battling it out... I thought it might be fun to add a little variety to the pool of forces. 

Also, 50% more miniatures to paint in the Soulblight Gravelords box! 29 versus the 20 in the Hedonites box (Sure, 2/3 of them are skeletons which sould be super quick to paint... still...).

(not ruling out the idea of getting a Soulblight Gravelords Vanguard box... but I'll wait and see how much AoS4E we end up playing and if others are as equally enthusiastic about Spearhead play. And I definitely will NOT be buying another if I don't get ALL of the Hedonites box done first!!) 

(For the record, this does not put me back in the RED - I've painted 111x 28mm miniatures so far this year and previously acquired 91... so I am dead even! But I need to paint these up quick before I'm going to allow myself to buy any more new things!) 

Work-in-Progress Wednesday - 19 June 2024

 The Landscape of the Workbench has changed somewhat... 

In the last week, I finished 11x Kairic Acolytes, 3x Gryph-hounds, Cado Exechiar, Mr. Squiggly-Wiggly, AND then I took stock of my Hedonites of Slaanesh and decided I need to get some DAEMONS painted... and THEN I realized I'm WAY closer to finishing Shadows Over Hammerhal, so I shelved the Grots and Tzangors and all the little familiars and Skaven Deathrunners... and then the Skaven warhammer underworlds warbands... and a couple other Warhammer Underworlds Warbands... and replaced THOSE with the five Putrid Blight Kings that I need to finish up the Hostiles for Shadows Over Hammerhal... 

And then I moved everything else that wasn't a priority OFF he Workbench... 

Most of it got organized into boxes that are on shelves right behind the workbench... so they're still there when I finish one thing, I can grab the next little batch! 

So what's still ON the Workbench...?

Putrid Blight Kings. I might have gone a little overboard with the rust... (can you really "go overboard" with decay on Nurgle models?) The armour started off GREEN... but not much is still visible... Not going to go back and "fix" it, leaving them as they are! 

Heroes for Warhammer Quest - the Lord-Castellant, Cogsmith, Black Ark Fleetmaster, Loremaster are all needed for Warhammer Quest: Shadows Over Hammerhal... 

Dagnai Holdenstock (from Cursed City) is there as well, because I was working him and the Cogsmith up with the Thundrik's Profiteers and is very nearly finished... 

Domitan's Stormcoven remains on the table, because the colour palette is so similar to  the Lord-Castellant, I thought I might finish them up along with the Lord Castellant... 

The Chaos Gargant - still want to get him finished by Friday... will it happen...? I don't know... 

This thing it back on the workbench... I finished him a few weeks back, but then realized he's the BIG BOSS in Warhammer Quest: Shadows over Hammerhal, and he looked so diminutive on that 32mm base... Especially compared to the Gaunt Summoner from Silver Tower... I decided to put him on a bigger base more appropriate to his station in life! 

Also the Free Miniature-of-the-Month is still on the workbench... ?

There are also a few other Warhammer Quest Heroes... I did take pictures but they were all blurry (like WAY MORE blurry than these pictures above, and I just couldn't be bothered to go back downstairs and take more pictures since they're not a priority and probably won't be worked on this week... or next... 

The top priority of things I definitely want to finish by the end of June:

• Chaos Gargant (for Warhammer Underworlds!) 
• Lord-Castellant (Shadows over Hammerhead)
• Cogsmith (Shadows over Hammerhead)
• Black Ark Fleetmaster (Shadows over Hammerhead)
• Loremaster (Shadows over Hammerhead)
• 5x Putrid Blightkings (Shadows over Hammerhead)

Maybe... 

• Dagnai Holdenstock (from Cursed City) 
• Domitan's Stormcoven (Warhammer Underworlds) 

I've been doing a lot of thinking and planning this last week. In no small part because we are nearing the end of a Quarter and I started drafting my Game Plan for 2024-Q3... and it's looking more like an actual PLAN than the last few! Part of that thinking and planning lead me to removing everything from the workbench that wasn't really part of the plan. A bunch of the boxes that were on the shelves behind the workbench were also taken to the basement and put into longer term storage, becase I'm just not getting to them this year (mostly 40K/Kill Team stuff... and... pretty much anything that wasn't Age of Sigmar related!?). 

Age of Sigmar - Gryph-Hounds

In addition to the last of the Kairic Acolytes, I finished up three Gryph-Hounds - the bestest hounds in all the mortal realms - over the weekend!

Three Gryph-Hounds

They almost look like they could be a family!? 

I know they're called "hounds" but the bodies look more feline to me - as Gryphons usually are - hence the pseudo-big-cat markings! 

Two of these are from Warhammer Quest games - the smaller one from Silver Tower, and the one with leopard spots from Shadows over Hammerhal. The other is from a bonus copy of Storm of Celestus Warhammer Underworlds warband that I have. The rest of the warband remain unpainted... I just figured since I was doing these other two gryph-hounds, I might as well do the one from Storm of Celestus while I was at it... 

Warhammer Quest - Kairic Acolytes

 Here, finally are the last of the Kairic Acolytes from the two earlier Age of Sigmar era Warhammer Quest games; Silver Tower and Shadow over Hammerhal.

I'm not sure which came from which set... 

These are all the Kairic Acolytes together. 

Weird that there are only 18 of these... They're sold in boxes of 20 normally...? Fielded in units of 10 or 20 in Age of Sigmar. Ah well... Finnegan's probably NEVER going to play Age of Sigmar, so why worry. 

These are all the Tzeentch forces so far - still need to finish up the Gaunt Summoner and Tzangors

I might convince him to play Warcry sometime - and he definitely will have a Warband's worth from these Tzeentch warriors. 

I'm pretty sure he'd have warcry warbands for Khorne and Nurgle as well, just from the miniatures in Silver Tower and 

All of the Warhammer Quest Hostiles (from Silver Tower and Shadow over Hammerhal) - so far! (only eight of the Kairic Acolytes were from Silver Tower)

To finish all the hostiles for Silver Tower I still need to finish the Grots, the Gaunt Summoner of Tzeentch, 2 Skaven Deathrunners, 6 Tzaangors, 8 Grot Scuttlings, and 6 more Chaos Familiars!

Huh... I just looked up the contents of Shadows Over Hammerhal and all I need  finish up .for that is 5 Putrid Blightkings...? Maybe I need to finish THAT one first!? 

HOW DID I EVER THINK SILVER TOWER WOULD BE QUICKER TO FINISH UP!?

This (along with the three Gryph-Hounds I also finished up over the weekend) puts me at 111x28mm miniatures painted so far this year - versus 91 acquired... Further into the Black! 

Yay! 

40L/AoS - Servants of Slaanesh

I created a new gallery/page for all of my Servants of Slaanesh models - for both Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. The immanent new edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar has got me thinking about playing the game again. Which got me thinking about this force and considering what I'd need to finish up to ready it to play at different levels: Vanguard (600 points), Warband (1000 points), Brigade (1500 points), Legion(2000 points) 

If you're looking at this blog on a web browser, you can find it listed amongst the Pages over on the left side of the page. I'm not sure how to find it on a phone... Regardless, you can also just click on this link:

40k/AoS - Servants of Slaanesh

There are most pictures of the painted stuff... and pictures of the still to be painted and/or assembled. The plan is to update it as I finish up models - which will be added into the mix of things I'm working on this summer... 

ALL THE THINGS - painted and unpainted/unassembled!

There is some background on why I thought it was a good idea to build a Slaanesh army. There's also some discussion of potential forces that could be fielded with both the stuff I currently have painted (for both Warhammer 40,000 and Warahmmer: Age of Sigmar) and what I could POTENTIALLY field, should WHEN I get around to painting them all!? 

There is even some discussion of what I might (*cough*) ADD to the forces... 

(honestly, it's not all that much...) 

Of course all this organizing and contemplating has ended with me moving boxes of Slaanesh models into the room with my painting desk - but I haven't put any of them ON the desk, yet! I do want to finish up a few of the things on there BEFORE I get totally distracted with cranking out Daemonettes and Seekers and such!

(like the Kairic Acolytes! They are SO CLOSE to being finished?!) 

Cado Ezechiar

 Cado Ezechiar is the protagonist of The Hollow King by John French. Of all the novels out there that get miniatures based on them, I'm not entirely sure why THIS on got one. I've been listening to the Audion book last week while painting and it's okay... I enjoyed it - apparently enough to go out and buy the MINIATURE of Cado... 

There were other factors involved. I liked the look of the mini... thought it might come in handy in Warhammer Underworlds - He seems like the PERFECT character for Silver Tower as he is driven by a singular purpose - hunt down and destroy the Burning Hand - a Tzeentch Sorceress and her army that destroyed his kingdom at the end of the Age of Myth. He'd be a likely candidate for busting into a Silver Tower to slay all the Tzeentch Daemons and cultists within and then shake down the Gaunt Summoner so find out more about the Cult of the Burning Hand?! 

Surely someone, somewhere, has statted him out for this purpose!? 

Cado Ezechiar

I used a base from a Stormcast model - rather than the plaing 40mm base that it came with ... and then added a few sculls and helmets and masks (mostly of Chaos warriors!) 

Also Cado is a Vampire Lord - playable in a Soulblight Gravelords force... and I do have a growing force of those - thank's to Warhammer Underworlds and Warhammer Quest: Cursed City! 

Next up...? Probably the Gargant... or the next (and final) batch of Kairic Acolytes! Then I just have a handful of Tzangors, and Grot Skuttlers and the Gaunt Summoner and a few more familiarts and we'll be ready to play through Silver Tower.

 

Warhammer Underworlds - MORE Terrain Bits

I finished up another little terrain piece from the Beastgrave terrain pack this week. 

Mostly we use these terrain bits to make Blocked Hexes a bit more clear...

But this one (as with a few of the others) look more like they are meant to be HAZARD or LETHAL hexes!? 

Getting to be a few of them.

I'd still like to make a few for the frozen caverns of Deathgorge or the Underseas depths of Harrowdeep... 

I am very nearly finished the Cado Ezechiar model - so close I put varnish on him... and then realized I missed a few little bits!? DOH!!

Also working on the Chaos Gargant and Kairic Acolytes for Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower! 

Work-in-Progress Wednesday - 12 June 2024 (plus new FREE Mini-of-the-Month)

Wow... got a lot of stuff FINISHED in the last week; Thundrik's Profiteers, The Chosen Axes, and my (Stand-In) Chaos Gargant...

Still a LOT of stuff on the workbench, though... 

Earlier today I rode out to the Warhammer Store and picked up the new Free Miniatures-of-the-Month - a Dark Oath Chaos Warrior! 

What have I actually been working on this week...?

I did assemble the Cado Ezechiar model I picked up last week... It came with a bare 40mm base, but I ended up using a modeled base from a free Stormcast Eternal mini that I'd picked up, but then realized was missing a leg!? (The shield from the same Stormcast Eternal is on the Gargant's base!)

I've also done a bit of work on the Chaos Gargant. 

Because it's a CHAOS Gargant, I wanted to do the skin in a not-so-traditional colour - like the Stand-In Chaos Gargant - but decided I should do a different colour... and chose green - as a sort of contrast to the purple of the Stand-In Gargant... but I'm not loving the green and now I'm kind of regretting it and wishing I'd just done purple on this one as well... but I'm not sure I can be bothered to try and go back and start over... because I kind of want to just GET IT DONE!!!

These are two Kharadron Warlord characters for Warhammer Quest games that I was working on along with Thundrik's Profiteers... The one on the left is, I think, Shadow Over Hammerhal, and wasn't given a name. The other is Dagnai Holdenstock, from Cursed City. As I got close to finishing those, these got left by the way-side in favour of just getting the others DONE and off the workbench. I imagine I'll finish these up in the next day or so... 

Few other 

I definitely did a little bit of work on the Kairic Acolytes this week, I was working with a lot of gold and used a bunch left over on these guys and then did some work on base colours for skin. 

So many rats and goblins and other assorted bits and bobs... but not many of those have been worked on this past week... 

I think the PRIORITY for the next week is the Chaos Gargant and maybe the Kairic Acolytes... Then there are just a handful of Tzangors and the Grot Scuttlers and six more familiars... oh, and the Gaunt Summoner... and THEN I'll be ready to play Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower... 

Warhammer Underworlds - The Chaos Gargant Hunt!

I recently finished up my Stand-In Chaos Gargant, so of course we needed to try out the Chaos Gargant scenario from the December 2018 edition of White Dwarf! 

The scenario pits multiple Warhammer Underworlds warbands against a Chaos Gargant! In the scenario Objective decks are not used, instead Glory is only gained from dealing damage to the Gargant or taking out Enemy Fighters - so, good to play a hard-hitting murder-y warband! Until the Gargant is at half wounds, warbands get One Glory for EACH POINT of Damage dealt! After it's down to half wounds warbands recieve One Glory each time they deal damage to the Gargant, regardless of how much damage they dealt. 

The Gargant itself is treated as an additional player which always goes first each round. Each turn, the players roll-off to see who controls the Gargant. On it's first turn each round, the Gargant goes on Guard. Thereafter the Gargant moves (if it can't move it does a Furious Bellow action - dealing One Damage to EVERY fighter on the table). Then it kicks an adjacent fighter, dealing one damage and pushing it one hex. Then it does one of it's attacks - Smashing someone adjacent, or throwing a boulder at someone up to 3 hexes away! 

Instead of playing three rounds, up to four rounds are played. If the Gargant is dead at the beginning of any End Phase the scenario ends and whoever has the most Glory Points wins. If the Gargant is still alive at the beginning of the fourth End Phase, the players ALL LOSE!!

I'd mentioned planning to play the scenario on Reddit and someone mentioned they'd played the scenario and it was fun... but they rarely made it past TWO ROUNDS! Modern Warbands are much more powerful than the warbands of the Shadespire/Nightvault era - when the scenario was written. 

Because the rules were written BEFORE Stagger was a thing, we just said that the Gargant could not be Staggered (otherwise it would just be two easy if Cyreni's Razors showed up. Cyreni's Hammertide action would just BREAK the Gargant's AI)

(I think maybe after the first turn or two, we forgot to 

Nic and Orion joined us to try out the Gargant Scenario. Orion brought she super-deadly Hexbane's Hunters. Nic decided to try out Ephilim's Pandaemonium. Amanda decided to try Storm of Celestus - because it's a shooty warband and they wouldn't have to get that close! I rolled out with Magore's Fiends! 

Just because of the way the boards worked out and where the Gargant was in relation to my starting hexes - I started with Zharkus the Bloodsighted adjacent to the Gargant. As the Gargant spent it's first turn going on Guard, I figured I'd get to hit it first and deal some damage and not even have to charge... 

Zharkus missed... 

Fighters started moving in - mostly shooting the first few activations

Conveniently, I controlled the Gargant the first turn it did things and I moved it forward, Kicked Apo'trax and chucked a boulder at Flamespooler. I was a little concerned that flamespooler might just start throwing it's flamsplash attack every turn - which splashes all adjacent fighters with warpfire... which deals a damage to each at the end of the round (I did not realize at the time, it just deals ONE damage, regardless of how many warping counters are on the affected fighters... still...) 

It was kind of funny watching all these fighers that would normally be fighting each other chasing after the Gargant, side-by-side trying to bring it down. 

Hexbane got thumped good at this point - but survived! 

Started getting a little crowded... when Orion blocked my path to the Gargant with Aemos and a dog... I just starting hitting who ever I could get to!

Once Aemos was in there, Orion started racking up the Glory! 

SMASH FLAMESPOOLER! 

Once the Gargant has taken damage equal to half it's health it inspires and gets MEANER... 

We probably COULD have ended it by the end of Round Two... but I think Nic had snuck just ahead of Orion for points.... 

So pretty much everyone that was NOT WINNING just started hitting other fighters to keep the Gargant from dying off, giving us all another round to get points from the Gargant - AND taking out a few fighters... 

We did finish off the Gargant in the third round.... Actually I think it finished itself off, by backing into a hazard hex and dealing itself one last point of damage 

The last few activations were spent trying to finish each other off for a few more points... but no one really had any chance of catching up to Orion at that point... Maybe Nic could have, but the Pandaemonium wasn't really positioned to strike at anyone they could potentially kill... 

Orion ended with 13 Glory points! Nic wasn't too far behind with 11 (which was pretty amazing, considering they were playing the warband for the first time without ever having looked at the cards - and playing with a Rivals deck!). I had 7... and Amanda only scored 4!? She just could not get fighters positioned to shoot and the few times she attack, she just missed (also she was playing with a Warband she'd never played before and their rivals deck that she'd never even looked at - and there weren't a lot of Power Cards that were particularly helpful - most were for positioning to get the warband onto Objectives and help them hold them - which are useless in this scenario)! 

It was a super fun scenario to play, though!! Definitely looking forward to trying it again. I really want to get my Gen-u-ine Games Workshop Chaos Gargant finished up and take it out to the Warhammer Store to play on a Friday - as I think it would be a fun one to play as a four-player game there! 

Warhammer Underworlds - Thundrik's Profiteers

When I started playing Warhammer Underworlds, I got pretty excited about the game and went a little overboard and started trying to track down ALL THE WARBANDS!? I ordered a copy of Thundrik's Profiteers and Ylthari's Guardians from a game store in Barrie, Ontario at the time - and they were still selling them for the original price! (or maybe even at a bit of a discount as it was dead stock to them, so I got it for the original price, including shipping...?) 

Upon opening the box and looking at their cards, motivation to paint them dropped sharply... they are... NOT GREAT. Despite the entire warband all having Range 3 attacks... they only do ONE DAMAGE!? Khazgan Drakkskewer has a 2 Damage attack - his range 2 Sky Pike... but that's it... Most of them inspire to 2 damage (and Drakkskewer's Sky Pike to 3 Damage)... but wow... they are not going to be a killer warband... What's even worse is that, again, with the exception of Drakkskewer, they all start with a Move of 2!? So they're not going to get anywhere fast to win by holding any objectives?!

They do all get significantly better when they inspire - almost all of them get faster, gain a wound and deal more damage when inspired... But they only inspire when they score an objective card... and only if Thundrick is on teh board... so you really have to try and protect one of your best fighters!? 

I don't know... they're fun looking models, and I'll definitely try them and play them occasionally because they look cool, but I don't have high hopes for them winning too many - or really ANY games... 

I was considering bringing them to the event on the 20th - but I'd have to pair them with a Generic Rivals deck, and I'm not really sure if any of them are really going to make up for any (let along ALL) of their shortfalls... Still it'd be fun to bring them, just to turn some heads - as NO ONE has played them around here. I don't think anyone I know even has a copy. There has to be at least ONE other copy in Saskatoon, though... because AFTER I got my copy from the store in Ontario, I notice MY OWN FLGS (Dragon's Den Games) actually HAD a copy tucked away behind some other stuff?! And I haven't seen it lately... so... SOMEONE must have picked it up!? 

Thundrik's Profiteers

Bjorgen Thundrik

Khazgan Drakkskewer

Dead-Eye Lund

Enrik Ironhail

Garodd Arnesen

I'll have to try them out with Amanda one of these nights and see if I can find some rivals deck that they don't TOTALLY suck with... Or... maybe I just do something totally silly with them, like take Breakneck Slaughter and shoot for the Wooden Spoon! 

And with these (and the Chosen Axes - posted earlier today), I am back in the black! I have now painted 96 x 28mm foot figures so far this year, and have only purchased 91!! With no othey purchases planned in the immediate future, I will hopefully keep ahead of the game for the rest of the year!! There WILL be some new Warhammer Underworlds warbands over the summer and fall, and a core box later in the fall... and if I keep it to JUST THAT I should be good... the only thing that could wreck that is if I do something stupid like buy a Spearhead box to play in some new Age of Sigmar league at the Warhammer Store through the summer...