Secrets of the third reich.... The Spiffing chaps in those flying machines...

After a fairly busy week I managed to get a game in against Stef and we pushed the points limit up to try out some new stuff and shiney bits in, 

I was facing Russians and I was wondering how to tackle the unwashed masses.... but then the British Steel stepped in and raped Stefs entire right flank!

This is there combat effectiveness for the game:

Advanced forward and blasted a bunch of guys, 

Stood still and blasted another bunch of guys who became disorganised

Assaulted what was left of the first lot they blasted

stomped through some woods and slotted named sniper

Blasted what was left of the second unit

Found another sniper and slotted him!

So yep not too bad!  Might change the mech rifle to a flame thrower to be honest... but I'm still deciding on that one?

I did some more on the British Steel though with the decals and also putting a unit marking that kinda matched the BLW 

a tad shiney on the decals but some anti-shine when the sun decided to show its bloody head will be applied!

 Mean while the R.A.F. is providing aircover from the Hun in the for of WASP suits, now as I start to understand the rules more these are looking more dirty, but I'll take them to the field and we'll see how they work,

I was going to keep them green but after thinking about how Nick & Lee painted there planes for CY6 I decided to go for the same kind of camo with the grey thrown in there and I'm happy with how it looks, breaks up the over all shape of the model and all that jazz!!

The RAF roundels are from doms decals and are 1/300 scale but look perfect for these I added some onto the upper thigh of the legs as well, The only thing that I havn't done is add the plastic canopy that comes with the models for a couple of reasons, one is that it'd fog up when anti-shine is put on and the other is that they would be a nightmare to fix, as you have to cut out the bubble canopy from a vacuum formed clear plastic sheet and I'll be honest I carn't be arsed with all of that!!

So it'll be onto the next game next week against Spencer and we're going for the whole hog 55 points!

The doomsday clock currently stands at..

D-34

So no worries now with getting all the bits that I want to finish off, well as long as I don't buy more!!

Winsor Newton Series 7, worth the dough?

Its all about your tool!

( This is inspired by a beasts or war review of brushes...  beasts of war )

As the years have gone on and meeting various different people who are very good at painting bending there ear on various techniques over a pint has taught me quite a few tricks! One of these is your brush....

Previously I've mentioned that I mainly use Winsor newton brushes for my painting, now I've tried various makes and types over the years and for quite a number of years I was using the GW brushes and was happy with them to be honest, only when Stef told me about Winsor newton and swore blind that they are the dog bollocks for splashing paint onto your plastic crack, I figured I'd order a couple of brushes and give them a crack. 

that was 3ish years ago and since then I've tried army painter and even picked up the odd GW one but I'm always picking up the black handled beauty that are series 7,

Example is in the picture below, the bottom arrived today, box fresh! Middle I picked up 2 years ago at Salute, the top one was one of the "founding chapter" brushes, ok so the top one has seen better days and the middle one is starting to die, but between those two brushes they have contributed towards about 1300 models since the beginning of 2010 and that doesn't even include the huge death guard army that I painted back in 09 with the help of the founding brush!

Size 0

When I'm asked what brushes do I use by the locals, a sharp intake of breath normally follows.. at around 9 quid a brush its to be expected! But a great man once told me you get what you pay for... ok I could spend £3 on a army painter or GW brush but would it last?? I doubt it personally, I could be wrong but I'm not one of these people who use brush soap and clean my brushes in distilled water, that's for people with OCD and anal habits! 

Size 00

 this lot below would cost you the best part of a ton! that alot of lap dances!!

The usual suspects...

As they then to be a bit of a mission to find I get mine from the following suppliers..

antenocitis workshop
artifolk.co.uk

So back to the title question...

Worth the dough??

Hell yea, don't be a tight ass put your hand in your pocket and pick up a couple of brushes you wont be disappointed!

But the real question is...

Is there something better than the Winsor Newton???

Secrets of the third reich.... Blast em chaps!

So with a second game under the belt against the Germans I'm starting to get into the swing of the rules and some interesting little points are emerging to make this quite a enjoyable game,

For this second game I was teaching Stef how to play and the speed that we got through the turns was pretty good and rapidly discovered that werewolves are pure filth as long as they don't get shot at by monster hunting SMG's and the damage that they can do in combat is very impressive!

We also played around with grenades and that was really easy to use and are very effective as long as your target doesn't throw them back!

No pictures of the game as I forgot and was fine tuning the learning of the rules, But I've been busy back in the den and managed to finish off the BLW with the decals that I got from wargames command post and splashed some paint on various bits and bobs,

So a close up of the zombie apparatus along with some gore

SMG's that I picked up a couple of weeks ago along side some packed LMG's the stens were outstanding on Thursdays game!

Close up, nice and easy to paint just need to base them now, 

British Steel & HMG, I picked up the British steel at the same time as the sten's and have been lurking on the secrets forum quite a bit and read a chap called Mr Castle who documented painting his British force and he mentioned that the arms that come with the British steel models look a little skinny and feeble, and decided to use marine arms as they looked spot on,

In the tradition of Anton I've blatantly copied his idea but didn't have any loyalist arms so used chaos arms and chopped of the skulls and they look cracking!

To go one step further I've used the LMG from Black Jack to convert the leader chap and the spare combat claws from the wasp squadron, just so that it gives the unit a bit of meaty factor,

as they stand being all green they look a bit dull to be honest but I've some 15mm transfers from when I did my US armoured a while back that I can use to make them look shiney and we'll go from there..

Yup its green! 

HMG... and the rules for this little monkey are mental for its points cost!

And finally Black Jack, I'm yet to use any leaders in the game but this guy looks to be a combat monster but as I've plenty of time left to try out different leaders we'll see if he makes the final cut.

just a little work on him and he's done and ready for basing

So the doomsday clock now stands at...

D-42

But I've managed to get all the objectives done that I set out 17 days ago and to the point that I'm now fine tuning the army ready for the GT, 

I'm still pinching myself... 17 days and I've managed to get so much done as well as entertaining the GC!

Shape, Shadow, Shine, Silhouette....

The real bonus is that some of the chaps from the local club have also been picking up stuff and to actually get Ross to buy something that isn't everblight is an achievement on its own!!

So with the starter set and some extra bits finished, I've picked up some more bits to make an additional rifle squad & engineering team all I have to do is convert some flamer throwers up if the rules look any good and await the bren carrier from warlord...

Secrets of the third reich.... Deploy the armour, First game & Mercs

So I managed to get a game in on Thursday and after a but of chin scratching I eventually sussed out the very basics of the game and promptly lost!

what we discovered though was that assault brens + Manpacked LMG = loads of firepower! but my rolling was "ok", the wounding system threw me for a bit but again fudged our way through that but the combat phase was quite confusing, so something that I'll have to have another look at when I get the chance.














Me on the voyage of discovery... its weird being in the actual photo for once!
















Tommy in the woods
















Whats that I spy before me..... LUPUS!

Men down... 
 
headless Germans gunning down the British

Sniper! making the headless Germans actually headless!! 

Spencer on his usual form! 

so I've another planned in for this week coming so hopefully I should be able to suss a bit more out and get more than two turns in.

We are also going to include a bit of armour in there to see how that plays and in the tradition that is Anton I've been working away on my BLW 99% of it is done just need to find some transfers for a 28mm 1/56 WW2 tank and I'll be away!

I went a bit OOT with the "battlefield" look but I figured it wouldn't be nice and shiny fighting against the zombie hordes!

Close up of the lower chassis

different angle,

with the alternative turret, to show the difference of pre-painted and Anton style!

The other thing that I've manly been doing this week is buying "another" rule book this time in the form of Merc's

I've only had a quick look at the book and most of that was the fluff, and I must say that I'm quite impressed so far the quality of the book in both layout and visual model/graphic porn is top notch and puts it in the A+ league amongst Games Workshop, Privateer Press & Ambush Alley games,

the rules look really well laid out and how it explain how the cards work for movement and shooting looks like it could be picked up no problem by experienced gamers,

The models??  well...

 

Enough said!

This is one that I'll definitely be picking up some games after the SOTR GT, just need to decide a megacorp and then a colour scheme and away I'll go, but as you only field 5 models max for a mission I'm thinking of making these boys extra shiny with a sprinkle of Anton Dust!

Secrets of the third reich.... We're on a roll!

So with the weather being superb and me shocking the world with my super-white legs in shorts, I've managed to get quite alot done for the British forces,

Some rubbish pictures for some reason the old camera is playing me up again??

Command squad with the priest looking quite fetching in his purple robey scarf thingy

 Anti-mechrifle team,

Bazooka Team

Sniper Team

Rifle Platoon, slightly different to what I was going to originally going to load it out with but I need some more normal armed guys rather than the piat-D's 

Close of of a normal chap,

The whole lot with two spare at the back and looking quite spiffing if I must say so myself! 

So the next batch is ready to go, there is going to be alot of green with this lot so should be fairly easy to blast through,

I would have been alot further along with these but with all the recent civil unrest in the UK its made some fantastic if not shocking TV.

But whilst looking around the internet and trying to find more info on it I stumbled across....

no-go-zone

so a game that's based on civil unrest and crime! once all the craziness has calmed down this might be worth looking at.

So I've my first game of secrets of the third reich this coming Thursday so assuming that I remember to take some snaps I'll see if I can do a "first look" on the actual game!

I also need to do 3 objective markers for the GT on 40mm (termi bases), any suggestions???

Secrets of the third reich progress....

So its been a few days since the realisation of the GT in a couple of months...

Apart from reading like a mad-man which I'll be honest I don't do that much I tend to dive in with a game and try and suss out the rules on the first couple of games, I've managed to come up with some kind of army list and as always I'm over the limit! it doesn't matter what system you play you can never get quite what you want in your army!


So 57 Rp list, need to drop it to 55...

Upgraded to Vets & Body armour

Black Jack

Rifle Platoon Command
Lt with Pistol
2x assault brens
1 Medic upgraded to chaplain
2 Commando carbines, one carrying a pait-D the other with grenade launcher

Rifle Squad
Packed .30

HMG team
Sniper team
Bazooka Team
Anti Mech team

British steel armoured squad, 4x packed vickers LMG's 1x anti-tank rifle
Custom Mech - British Land Walker Mk2 (well you have to have "some" fluff!)

The custom Mech is something that I've enjoyed trying to suss out and give it some funky kit without making it stupid expensive on the field,

Chassis - Medium & +1 speed class
Armour - Medium
Weapons - Heavy anti-tank gun
                 Twin linked HMG
Equipment - anti-zombie apparatus!
                     Improved sights
                    Jacketed shells

I could drop the mech and go for a 12 pounder anti-tank gun and have enough points for another rifle platoon with bren transport, but I'm leaning towards the BLW as is "cool"!

after all...

how cool is that! (ignore the green it will be repainted!)

and a variant turret you get but I pulled off the stubby barrel put the flamethrower bit on, might point up this version and see how I get on with it, but I picked up two kits and as the model comes with two turrets there is plenty of choice!

even though these haven't made it in the army list, but they might do, one of my converted wasp suits basically a metal rod shoved up its ass!

and where I am with the painting so far, the brown is done, the green is done and I'm working my way through the webbing, but I'm doing the whole army in one fell swoop so its taking time as expected!

On the gaming front I've managed to get quite a few games arranged with the guys from the local club so that's basically everything off the list ticked off just need to fine tune my list so that I can get it to 55 points and suss out the rules!

I also need to make 3 objective markers any suggestions??

D-57

Preparing for the Secrets of the third reich GT or designing & painting an army in 8 weeks!

So....

I received my conformation email from the nice people at westwind telling me that I've got my place in the Nationals and all that jazz,

After flicking though the PDF I got to the nitty gritty and saw that they would "prefer" weird war two type models, but as I've only got westwind stuff I don't thinks that's a real biggie, but then I got to the section about painted armies... they want people to attempt to bring a painted army.

Initial thoughts thoughts were "yea no worries I'll have them banged out in a month or two" but then the realisation slowly hit me as I remembered that its at the beginning of October!!

I have about 7 and a half weeks to get the following done:

1. Suss out the rules enough to design an army
2. Convert a Mech 
3. Convert the wasp unit that I bought last month
4. Paint the lot! its not gonna win best painted but I wanna be in the running!
5. Try and get a couple of games in so that I don't look a total noob! 

 and for the next few months everything is on the back burner, including the new Prussian robot thing that I picked up the other day!

I'm gonna finish basing my Prussian armoured box set as that's good as done all it needs doing is some flock and its there...

As for designing a list well I've had a bit of a gander around on the old net and can't really find anything of substance to give me a leg up on this part so, I'll more than likely try and use some games to decide whats good and whats not!

The designing and converting a mech should be interesting as I've had my eye on Dust tactic's for a while now and they have released the mech out of there big bog game individually so I'll be picking up a couple of these...

now you get three different turrets so that should give me plenty of choice for designing a mech, and they come pre-painted but no doubt I'll re-paint it.

So there you are Operation Nice One is green to go...

D-59

So my question to the masses is can anyone give me any tips on this game! LOL

June Update & First look: Cutlass

Well I gave a bloody good go but crashed and burned on the pledge this month....


Bought: 97
Painted : 71
Difference: -26

But to be honest it wasn't a bad innings really, considering the usual factor of work, glorious English sunshine and BBQ's and buyng 2 complete army's in one fell swoop (again!) Oh and I'm back on the MMO crack....

So to put it in a visual version...





year to date is looking pretty good as well...

Bought: 867
Painted: 756
Difference: -111

does anyone else have a "pledge" and how are you getting on??

So onto Cutlass, Yet again I pick up another system at Salute and this time I can blame it on Lee, but we suckered two others in this time...

Myself, Lee & Nick have been playing for about a month now and between us we've pretty much got the rules sorted, and the gangs/crews are coming along nicely,

With my opponent not feeling too well I was at a bit of a loose end so decided to watch Lee & Nick beat the crap outta each other only to see then both decide defend and dragged me into the game to control the invaders, So in a nut shell I needed to inflict maximum damage on there gangs so that I could take advantage when I played them another time... Cue evil laugh........

Gameplay:

You get a random amount of actions per turn this is decided by rolling your Authority level of your captain/leader, the highest score goes first and each action lets you do one of three things:

Move
Shoot
Close Combat
but you can also do Special Actions i.e. reload, hide, make ready etc..  along with one of the above,

so if you roll a 5 then the first action you can activate 5 models, deduct one from the score, and then your next action you can activate 4 models and so on until you've ran out of points, 

the thing that makes spending of your action points quite tactical is that your able to react to certain situations like if your shot at and your opponent misses, but to react you would need a 4+ on your reaction stat, and the stats are the dice that you use, most of my orc's are on a D6 but as they gain XP and level up then they would go to a D8 and could go all they way to a D12

the dice also affect how far you can shoot with certain weapons, pistols will always shoot at point blank but a guy with a musket with a D12 stat will be popping your head off at 24 inches!

so that's game play in a nutshell, the only one thing that I don't like about it is that if you roll rubbish for your action points it can become very one sided very quick! but a way that we've got round that is two roll two dice and choose, which we've stolen from the guys from the forum and it works really well.

The other thing that gripes me is that the layout of the book is very poor, the quality is good with nice pictures and all that jazz but who ever actually laid out the rules needs to look at it from a noob view as to start with we were constantly flicking back and forth trying to suss out the more interesting rules!

Models:

Black Scorpion have a pretty good range of pirate models doing various races and these are covered off in the book so you can do a undead, elf, dwarf, orc, humans both marine pirate and privateer.

You could quite easily use other stuff though after all they are pretty common, If I was to do a second crew I'd go for either a Chinese crew or French marine crew using one of the human lists.

Lastablilty:

This is where personally the game really comes ointo its own, I've always been a sucker for Nercomunda style campaigns where your crew gets better as you play, and when you lose one its like losing one of your goldfish!!

The Mission that we played the other night was an XP-tastic for both Nick & Lee but that means it'll be all the better when I take them down... 


 So onto the game and the set up of the Table... I'd be coming on from the bottom edge with Lee & Nick set up halfway in, 

To keep it "fair" I split the invaders in half and eyed up each crew, if I wanted to be horrible then I could have stacked one side but that wouldn't really be cricket!

I got initiative and declared a load of move actions... but there is a rick involved in this and I soon started to pay the price when most of my invaders were stunned due to me pushing my luck!!

So the Orc's come steaming over the hill only to see marines armed with muskets...

And on the other side using the trees as cover the orc's sprit forwards to close with and KILL the enemy!

As Lee couldn't do a great deal due to range he hid & made ready... 

And Reinforcements came to plug the pending whole in his flank

Once I'd burned through my action points it was time to get shot at, I couldn't react as part of the mission rules though.

The Marines opened up with some superb shooting injuring an orc twice and taking him out! 

meanwhile on the other side the orc's were still running towards Nicks well hidden ninja mofo's! Now the marker next to grot chap was to show that he was stunned.... because when he tried to run he tripped and fell! Now if your stunned your dice go down by one level which means this guy was on D4's for all his stats, So Ants tip of the day unless you need to charge then don't bother running!!

So an overview of the field of battle,

 on the left I was getting quite close to Nick's lot with the odd guy going down here and there I wasn't stopping for anything it was going to get very dirty very quick!

On the right due to the "zulu" deployment I scooted round to the left to use the building and crates as cover and stick it to him that way! but I did leave a Goblin sneaking along the table edge....

And the following turn... the left flank made it to the battleline pretty much intact, but as most of them where stunned due to excessive running I was rolling  D4's for attacking, mind you the "exploding" dice rule which means if you roll the top number you roll again adding it on made it quite good as some of my rolls were cracking and some total pants, i.e. "doing a Spencer" ;)

Close up of the carnage around Nick's crew, loads of complicated combat with the decision that cutlass & dagger are the best combo weapons wise... because the additional combat weapon gives you an additional dice, and if you opt to use the dagger you get another making 3 dice in combat but one to damage or if you opt to use the cutlass you get two dice to damage but two to attack.

and the one sneaky gobbo managed to make it round the gunline and take out one guy in combat, blow another guys face off with his pistol then ended up in combat! whatta man!!

the other guy was holding his own against 3 combat chaps and did quite well!

In the end I think Nick won on kills but only because I took out so many of  Lee's crew, for the injury rolls no one died but some minor injuries but nothing too harsh.

So overall a good game a little long as there was alot going on, but something that I will be playing again and the carnage that I caused was great fun!!