Jugula Gladiators ready for entertaining,

So as a bit of a break from the expo preparation and whilst waiting for extra materials to be sorted out I decided to get the gladiator models for Jugula painted up,

As these are 35mm they are huge compared to your normal wargaming figures and has had a mixed response from the gaming community with some moaning that they are too big and can't be used with other companies whilst others are liking the bigger than life models,

For me personally I'm in the "like" camp as they are hefty chunky models and for about a fiver each not a bad purchase personally, I picked up the 4 man set and within that you get a load of options to build different types of gladiators. I went with the normal dudes and the plan is to pick up a couple of extra bodies for the more funky types at a later date,

I was going to paint these guys skin tone European but decided on a ethnic African skin tone for some pratice and the black guy in these films always tend to be rock hard!
 

I did think about magnetising the hands etc but to be honest I couldn't be arsed as I was feeling lazy and as I'm only going to play this now and then it doesn't bother me that I've restricted myself.

I've used red for my lanista colours to tie the models together and gone for a fancy looking armour set rather than a rusty battered look.

I've decided to join in on a painting challenge on face book called the £5 wargamer challenge, £5 Wargamer challenge hence the sister of battle, not sure what colour to go for though, 

 So options are...

the challenge is to paint it as nice as possible and then see how much you can make off it, I'll be donating 100% of mine to help for heroes though, I'll post some work in progress and a link to the auction once I put it up.

so onto the Pledge, traditionally April is always a negative month due to the mega shopping trip known as salute how ever thing year I was a tad more reserved!

Bought - 41
Painted - 98
Difference +55

so a massive difference compared to previous years!

Onto the goals for 2014.....

4x4 Jungle board - is now 99% finished, I've now found the final part...

Fenris games have these up for pre-order with 20% off!











4x4 old west/wild west exodus board - still outstanding i.e. not even started!



Finish off some projects:
Cybertronic for warzone - Done
Enforcers for deadzone - Done
Terrain for deadzone - Done 
Enlightened & Outlaws for WWX - in progress....
Zee dreadball team - still outstanding
Malifaux Gremlins - still outstanding
Plague reaper for 40K escalation - still outstanding
Orks for 40K (not finish but do enough for 2K) - on the table ready to go after the saga expo board!
 Finish off the 5th Company including the drop pods - still outstanding
Orcnar for Relics - still outstanding

New systems & Projects that I've not kickstarted:
Judge Dredd -  Have the rulebook, but no interest at the moment within the gaming club
Muskets & Tomahawks - Have the rulebook, but no interest at the moment within the gaming club
Italians for boltaction - models bought and on the way!

I have been a little naughty though....

I've heard very good things about this system so decided to take the plunge and as I've 28mm & 20mm I've plenty of bits ready. 

Start of the Saga Demo board for expo,

Even before we'd finished the salute board I was already thinking about the board for Expo,

After the huge amount of work that had gone into the salute board we thought of what we could do to recycle one of the previous games we'd done and the brain wave was to use the saga game that I ran for the club back in March, some tweeking with regards to making it look pretty and we were good to go!

one of the guys managed to pick up a second boat and part of the deal to keep it was to paint some objective markers that would be used within the game,

After painting all the Russians I was looking forward to painting normal colours! 

so I've done 5 stands of villagers and 5 stands of livestock, and these are mixed in with the ones I've previously done, A close up of the villagers, real simple and quick paint job on these,

so all I need to sort out now is the extra ship and the actual beach head, and the board is pretty much sorted!

Salute 2014, Leicester Phat Cats on tour part two

Part two... 

I did manage to have a brief wander around and snap as many pictures as possible, the quality of the tables and models were superb and my pictures really don't do them justice!

This bad boy won best in show I think and well deserved it was too.

One of the three postwar  boards including the Phat Cats board,

Two Fat lerdies chain of command, a system that is getting talked about quite a bit, I'll get a demo in one day! 

The superb gunts board

The Gripping beast stand was busy and Jugula looked very popular!

The amazing looking cresent and cross board

The guys from ground zero games? had a cracking looking mech type game that they are working on, I spent a bit of time chatting with them about the up and coming system as well as the great quaility of the board. 

Prodos games was rammed all day, Lee told me that they sold most of the stock on the day! 

The other postwar board, a great looking 'nam game using bolt action rules

some very pretty terrain on the wayland stand, 

The Perry's continue to pump out more african WW2, 

And with Rendrea releasing the african type huts you can have an instant board!

Another new system that caught my eye, and another one for the demo list

The 4Ground stand looked superb and the workmanship and finish was cracking

Fenris Games did a great looking swamp board, 

These guys were just across the way and the modern system that they have coming up on kickstarter looks superb, one to watch for. 

As I was manning the table for most of the day I didn't really get the chance to go shopping so picked up a Saracen warband for Cresent and the Cross as well as Jugula, Both look superb so I'm looking forward to getting some paint on these great models.

The day it self was superb and I really enjoyed speaking to everyone as the compliments were very kind from everyone, we've already started planning the Salute 2015 board as we have been given a very exciting opportunity but more on that another time. First its Expo and I'll be leading the team with a two day Viking Invasion game!