Secrets of the third reich.... Derby GT & show review

So the GT has come and gone and the initial 59 day run up to the event has been well... eventful!!

So I managed to....

Learn the rules & teach half a dozen people at the same time how to play!

Spencer, Stef, Ross & Daz all picking up armies for SOTR just from watching me bumble my way through the rules!

Sorting out & painting my army to a fairly reasonable standard, chopped and changed it various times so that I ended up painting all of my British!

Meeting a nice bunch of chaps from Portal Wargaming namely Dave, Ian & a mental chap called Amos and looking forward to the SOTR campaign that starts in November.

Meeting Phil who kept me company on the drive back and forth to Derby and he ended up finishing 3rd, Pretty damm good for some one who only really saw me running Darrell through a game around 3/4 weeks ago!


Doing fairly reasonable at the GT with 8th place out of 12 scoring 50 points with two wins, two losses and one draw, but the real moment of pride for me was picking up the baton of honor (even though I didn't hear my name being called out until everyone looked at me!)

The Baton was based on army design, over all painting of the army, sportsmanship and attitude over the weekend, and a couple of the judges seemed to like the objective markers and the extra effort that I'd made for the alien tech mission.

So well chuffed with this, I'll put it along side the sportsman award from the 2010 warmachine GT.

The tables that the MDK boys had bought down from sunny Manchester where superb..

Florence South

Florence North

Kursk

 Bastogne

Paris

Cairo

I didn't get a chance to take any snaps of the actual armies as I was too interesting in food on the Saturday and Mr Upton swung by to pay me a visit on the Sunday so we were whaffing shite as always!

A couple of guys were taking pictures so when they go up on the SOTR forum I'll put a link over, Overall the GT was very well ran and a very friendly atmosphere was present though out there was some quite tense moments but nothing that actually spoilt the weekend (unlike the warmachine one)

I also got to meet Wendy & Andy from westwind and as people go these pair were genuinely really nice people! (unlike some of the miserable fuckers that I've meet on my travels!) We went for a meal on the Saturday night which was arranged by Wendy and that was the cherry on the cake for me as I got to chat to other people I hadn't actually played against and talked about the gaming industry as a whole & parenting tips! and some the usual drinking stories that I come out with...

Army list wise I was quite happy with how it performed overall, and a few school boy errors did hinder my chances but I'd slipped into "40K" mode and forgot about cover and only seeing 2" through it or about the alternative actions and leaving paddy and his boys exposed to a counter charge from wolf runners that spanked there naughty MI-13 bottoms!

I'm going to make a big effort to go next year and see if I can bring some of the "Cats" to represent.

So the actual show its self...

First time I'd been to Derby and the venue was pretty good lots of natural light in the trader areas which was a welcome change from others that I've been to, vendor wise it was more historical rather than sci-fi but that wasn't a huge issue for me personally, we'd managed to get in early on both days so on the Sunday I snapped this little lot..

Celts up against Romans

same table different view

operation squad

other side

no idea but the terrain was superb!

hand built church!

cool looking town square with the horses around the "thingy"

some more of the same table

Ansty stall, up and coming pirate ships, the man-o-war was about £70 which wasn't  bad personally!

close up of the sloop?

the man-o-war

no idea.

still no idea

10mm ww2 desert

some of the traders

some more

more upstairs!

and even more!!

ACW 6mm

insane painting on this lot!

no idea?

still no idea??

lots of hidden deployment ;)

these guys like the square formations!

err... pass?

and Phil smirking inside as some chap tries to sell him what can only be described as the worst cast buildings I've ever seen!

so I'd done quite well on the Saturday only picking up a copy of Saga from gripping beast even though they didn't have my pre-order sorted so they made one up whilst I was playing my second game and boo-hiss I'm missing a blister with 8 chaps in.

But on the Sunday my wallet was well and truly opened and I did go a little OTT at Total System Scenic and picked up loads of bits for the V1 / V2 launch site board, and after a little messing around with what I got its gonna look pretty cool... But I'll show you pictures another time.

I also managed to pick up a couple of V1's that are in transport mode, but after a but of a closer inspection its a copy of the plastic one that I picked up the other week so size wise spot one, casting quality is "ok"

and then Phil wanted to look at the bring and buy, now normally I don't see anything that I like the look of/need and to be honest most of it is utter tosh! but I managed to spot a potential deal but was being bocked out by two little girls looking at the "pretty" horses! after some evil whispering from Mr Upton saying I needed more so that I could field at least 3 divisions for hail Cesar and in the end I succumbed to his whispers and a nice chap passed me the bits that I was looking at and I picked up 2 boxes of Celt cavalry, 2 boxes of Celt warriors and 2 boxes of ancient British all made by warlord for a bargain price of £47! so it worked out buy one get one free!

so with the Pledge being reset for October and I was quite determined NOT to buy any thing apart from Saga its all gone tits up with the Celts (again) so I've a whopping 165 models to get though.

So I'll continue to work on the club board and once that's done I'll then make an effort to get the Celts started, they'll  be getting the dip treatment, the Vikings for Saga will be the "normal" Anton painting, and that means the plague reaper will be put on the back burner.

So watch this space for the SOTR board and some hardcore production line Celt assembly/painting/dipping!