November update....

So where has the month and more importantly the year gone!!

So I managed to smash the "pledge" outta the park this month despite going a tad OTT towards the end of the month with my impulse buying!

So I managed to get the People Army North Vietnam painted...

All 70 stands of them! the real trick was I picked up some army painter brown leather spray and that was 80% of the painting done! real time saver!! I'll be picking up various other colours as I need then to save on the basecoat stage or I might get my hands on a airbrush and see what I can do with that? 

So 2 infantry companies, with HQ

all the weapon teams in the collection, Normal &  heavy AA, normal & heavy anti-tank guns and Normal & heavy mortars, HMG teams as well as HMG bunkers

 I'm quite happy with this lot and all I need to do is get a game in against Adam with his yankie pigs... But now I've sussed out the VC I'll be moving onto the Russians that I've had kicking around for the past 3ish years at some point!

Whilst waiting for the various bits to dry I managed to crank out the two merc's models that I picked up earlier this month, now I was going to go for a digital camo type scheme but there isn't enough Armour plates to make it look effective enough so gone for a standard looking military green, I was tempted to do the yellow but I wanted a special forces feel to them.

So what were my impulse buys?

Well a marauder starter army for warpath, basically a shit load of Orx's and these are the bits I've threw together ready for a test paint and I'm going the dip method with these guys

the other lot was 20mm Germans from the plastic soldier company, I got 57 of the little monkeys for 9 quid! 

I'll be doing reviews of both the warpath & plastic soldier stuff in the next week or two once I've got a few bits sorted out.

so onto the "pledge"

Bought - 125

Painted - 146

Difference  + 21

If it wasn't for the warpath and 20mm Germans I'd be at a  + 121!!

So till next time, be lucky!!!

First Look: Saga

So after picking up the rules for Saga at the Derby show back in October myself and Lee finally managed to slot a game into our busy gaming calendar, and this is what we thought of it,

Gameplay:

Rules wise its very simple with the battleboard being the key to your faction, think of it like warmachine where you have your abilities that your able to use each turn, you also activate and do a units move/shoot/melee all in one go however with Saga you roll a certain amount of Saga dice depending on how many units you've got on the table and depending what you roll will depend on what you can activate or abilities your can use for that turn. So it can be a bit random but it makes getting combo's off really good and each faction has a different style of play.

( as we're still waiting for the "special" dice to come from gripping beast I knocked some up with a downloadable PDF from the forums )

The other aspect of the game that sets it apart from others that we've played was the fatigue, in a nutshell you can activate your units more than once (if your roll good enough on your saga dice) but you wear them down and once your in combat your opponent can use your fatigue to reduce your armour or increase his and other bits and bobs, so again another nice touch that we liked.

Combat gives you an interesting angle, you can take attack dice and allocate them to help roll additional saves or just go hell for leather and try and slice and dice them! 

Models:

I got the viking starter set and it gave me a 4 point raiding party, the models are not too bad, fairly simple to paint and if you wanted there are enough manufatuers of 28mm dark age models so that your could have a real personalised looking force.With this being a skirmish game your don't need that many around the 35 mark will give you a fairly decent sized warband, some games I've played that's one bloody unit!

Lastability:

I like this quite a bit and so can see me playing this alongside cutlass quite alot, I played a 4 point game and even with trying to suss out the rules we were done and dusted within a couple of hours. We have both Nick & Coops watching and by the end of it they knew pretty much what was going on.

The only point that Lee would like to see is some kind of campaign system where your warlord and normal guys get better, but after some brain storming the only system that I know of that has unit advances is mordhiem and with a little jigging about you could bring that into your games, but saying that there are quite a few scenarios that can be played so plenty to keep you going.

So onto tonight's game...

4 points aside, Vikings up against Anglo-Danish

The classic set up! meet you in the middle...

The viking line.

the Anglo line, Lee's managed to get his force painted before his first game, he also managed to do the same for cutlass and this is the only time in all the years I've known his to ever achieve that!! but that's army dip for you eh! ;) 

So my first turn nothing fancy, just charge, I double activated the berserkers on my right flank to see how Lee would react, 

a unit of Lee's Hearthguard broke the shield wall and we soon discovered how good combat was with them going down after a couple of round of combat, at this point we discovered that the warlord can activate for free and any one unit within 4" can also be activated for free.... my hulk hogan impressions were soon to be short lived.... 

and with a counter charge he went down like a sack of spuds!  His body guard getting wiped out and taking two wounds he was outta there!!

and how it finished, my left flank was kicking ass, and nothing was left of the Anglo's and the right flank the beserkers were mooching about waiting for the right moment... its all kicked off in the centre though,

And funnily enough Lee likes this system as he's "kicked my ass" (again) but I'll be back Upton..... 

Neither of us had any missile troops and that's the next bits we'll be picking up along side Nick going for Norman's on horse back it's looks like Saga is here to stay!

Now only of they did a Samurai version.....

Saga, Vikings on tour....

With my first game of Saga looming I've decided to give the Vikings a lick of paint,

So the group shot, 

warriors at the back and hirdmen at the front, with the army deal that I got from gripping beast I got some shield transfers and used these on the hirdmen so that they stood out compared to the normal chaps,

and the other lot

the Boss man with the standard, 

These were really nice to paint as I only had 30 odd models to do I could spend a bit of time on them rather than just cranking them out like I did with the celts, the shield transfers and flag are really detailed and went on no problems, with the flicking that I've been doing with the Saga rule book the system looks like its gonna be alot of fun, and the naked nutters are solid in combat but do get a reduction in armour as they are wearing bugger all!

The other thing that I'm trying to do is tie up some loose ends with nearly finished projects and did the converted tractor muls for infinity,

there a fairly basic paint job, but there good enough for the table top, 

other side, 

so I've only a handful of models to finish for the infinity, a big robot thing for d-wars and then I'll see what else takes my fancy, I have picked up another system in the form of....

Now I first saw this back at Salute earlier this year and didn't really look at it as the £45 price tag for the book was beyond ridiculous! however warhammer historical are having a half price sale on some of there books so for £24 quid I figured why not and one of the local guys had seen a game being played and was raving about it!

only problem being its aimed for 20mm, now I've no idea about manufacturers etc.. but looking around the plastic solider company is looking like its gonna be at the top of my shopping list, of maybe good old airfix?  Anyone else know any recommended 20mm or 1/72 models?

On a final note the "re-paint" of the necrons came in split between the purple and devlin mud, so I'm gonna have a crack using both! more on this another time....

0100111001100101011000110111001001101111011011100111001100100001

Well "they" have arrived....

 

And arn't they shiney!! I might post my thoughts on the codex once I've had a chance to have a good old read but whilst picking up the codex I got two new necron chaps, I just went for what looked "cool" so...

Now these are the first "finecast" models that I've bought and overall not bad but with GW stating:

"Our Citadel Finecast models are the latest step in hobby evolution, providing you with incredibly detailed, high-quality resin kits to bolster your army. Painting and modelling Citadel miniatures has never been as rewarding as this." 

The big boss man... so this side looks alright,

oh look lasgun burn holes... that's really cool battle damage and so precise.. 

So the cryptec chap, again looks ok from this side, 

and yea not bad from this side either,

however after a quick flick though ye oldie codex, you can have 5 of these for each lord as a retinue type unit or split them off into squads, but as the body is a one cast piece, they could have have the model a bit more poseable so that you can have different versions rather then just arms.

Thoughts on finecast?

Its "ok" nothing to get over excited about and personally the "statement" is truly a bag of tosh and after looking on the main GW website seeing some of the prices of the re-released old models done in finecast I'm actually quite shocked, Abbaddon for 14 quid! that's just plain taking the piss for a model that old!

So after sticking the main bodies to the bases the weapons will come later after I've sussed out how to kit them out I figured I might as well resurrect the boys from back in the day....

 

So the "traditional" necron paint scheme, you can't really go wrong with the T-100 scheme, but with a little twist of the green rods painted red to give it a more "evil" look.

I decided to have a play about with the current range of washes that I've grown to love, and did two warriors in a different wash to see how they looked

So the left one is devlin mud and the right one is badab black

then I went a bit more "adventurous" and you've got purple on the left blue in the middle and red on the right.

and the group shot.

I think the blue is "too" blue if that makes sense? I'm liking the purple & the red but a whole army might look a bit weird and how would the destroyers look with those big flat areas?

so as I can't decide I'll open a poll!!

so vote and put your thoughts below,

October Update / SOTR Table / Road trip / Celt warbands!

yep its a action packed post today, get a brew and relax!

We'll start with the October update,

So picking up the Celts at the Derby show did throw a spanner in the old works for being on target for the month but "somehow" I managed to get the Celt infantry warbands finished all 123 of them!

So that lot is 4 warbands the gap is gonna be filled with 3 spares that I did with the last lot, and 2 command elements. All I've got to do is anti-shine them when I get some nice weather and I'm not doing 10 hour days at work!

All I need to do for the Celts is 20 cavalry and we're sorted!

So the pledge ended up like...

Bought       165
Painted      146
Difference -19

IF I'd managed to get the cav done then I would have broken even but hey not to worry!

So the SOTR club table...

with being distracted with the Celts and general odds and sods I've not made a great deal of progress with this recently,

so the hanger with some paint on, I've a second on the go at the moment as well,

and the usual ruins, 

some more ruins, 

and guess what more ruins!!

but whilst wandering the net and looking at a huge pile of foamcard that Spencer dumped at my place I decided to have a play about with print your own buildings...

printed out, stuck on foamcard, banged together, painted the edges brown and we're sorted!

barn type building, the great thing about this is the PDF has different "skins" so that you can change the doors, roof and wall types, just a bit of touching up and the jobs a good-un!

Only downside to these buildings is that they are sealed so you carn't put models in them but to be honest there more for fantasty/warmachine so not that much of a issue really.

I've printed off quite a bit and all I need to do is get these stuck to some of the foamboard and sorted out ready for this weekend so that the Phat Cat's Blood and Oil Torney will have a medieval city board to fight over!

So the road trip...

Nick suggested wandering down to a place where you could bid & buy military stuff, I liked the idea of that but when he mentioned that some Russian stuff would be there it was good as sold!

Inside a BRDM

Still inside, I was quite surprised how small it was inside... 

from the outside, 

Armoured recovery vehicle with 93 miles on the clock!

BMP-1? there were two of these, 

interesting set up inside, with two separate areas for the infantry to sit, again quite tight in there! 

T-68

from the front, 

and other side, 

the BMP from the front

Spencer & Nick having a nosey about

Carn't afford a tank? how about the tracks!

these cost more than the BMP's!

Its spot the Spencer!

A warehouse full of "bits" 

with a 40mm AA gun hidden near the back! 

anyone for a landrover? 

A stupid amount ready for auction! 

Huge tuck! 

no idea looked good though!

Fancy starting a haulage firm?

more landrovers from Northen Island as well as Iraq & Afgan, the ones from the sunshine state looked like they'd been driven into the ground! 

Combat engineering vehicle, loads of these just kicking around!