Terrain-tastic!

Recently I've been on a mission to finish off projects that have been kicking around for a while, So this is what I've been up to for the last couple of weeks,

So starting off with some cacti that I picked up at the derby show from great escape games, dead simple and nicely sized as you can see with the warzone brotherhood chap.

Talking about brotherhood I did some objective markers,

And some legion markers for good measure!

I picked up some teleport homers online and based them up for objective type markers for either warzone, dystopian legions or any other sci fi steampunky type game,

Trees as you can never have enough trees! these are from ebay and found them in the model railway section, not crazy expensive and certainly different to the usual GW type trees that you see kicking around,

a generic barn from the perry brothers, with PVA still drying!

and the farm house, both really nice models and lovely to paint up,

the usual size type comparison, designed for 28mm historical rather than space marine and the like!

I picked up a sarrissa train station a while back when I was planning my WWX, deadmans hand board and this was fairly simple to put together and not over hard to paint, I've not painted an MDF building before that has as much detail with the wood panelling and the like and it was quite easy once you understand the material.

I was worried that I'd hide the detail but it wasn't to be the case!

I dig out a bit of track and a carriage to see how it looked against the station, and its a really good match,

I'm hoping to get the train finished in the next couple of weeks and that'll be the wwx/wild west board done, I'm on the look out for some teepee type buildings for something different.

I've gone for a green type board though as I can reuse the battlemat that I picked up and use the buildings for various other systems.

I couldn't go the whole month without some actual figures and I finally got the last of the previous tor gaming kickstarter finished in the form of the wound markers which I'll be using as objective markers for the orcnar.

I increased the amount of unmann that I've got and with the nappa's they can turn into unmann! so more the merrier!

And finally a bunch of BTR-50's 20mm scale for the Crisis show in Antwerp this weekend, This will be first time that I've been abroad purely for a gaming show and really looking forward to it, expect plenty of pictures from that one next week once I've recovered!

If your over at Crisis come and look for us playing on the huge Yom Kippur board.

The pledge is still on hold as I've not picked up a new rig and probably won't until after the new year due to home improvements, Christmas and all that jazz!

Megacon Games Myth - Kickstarter arrives at the Anarchy!

So after a "significant" wait Myth finally lands on the doorstep of Fort Anton with an all mighty thud!

Lovely box art and the actual box is very sturdy and should last a while, so onto the heroes...

In all honestly I've no idea who is who as I've only looked at the models and flicked though the rule book and had a quick glance at the cardboard tiles. However these are pre-assembled and over all not too bad some hot water bending is required as well as clearing some flash away, but to simply play straight out the box these are spot on, far better compared to super dungeon explore.

these will be great to paint up and have loads of uses if you play various D&D type games

So onto the bad guys, I've grouped these into what I think are the right "types" but I'm not 100%,

so skeleton type dudes, the cannon fodder and boss type chap.

Orc type guys, with some medium chaps and a big chap looking angry!

The critter crew, one of the small critters is missing an head, but I'm too fussed as I've so many extra models!

Rat men, armed with catapults and crossbows! the boss type figure has loads of rats crawling all over him and is a cracking model.

some cyclops type guys and weird looking circular disc armed guys,

A collection of stuff that was left over, I'm sure that they should be grouped with the guys above, I'm liking the wizard type chaps on the right, not sure what I'm gonna do with four though!

Object type markers I'm assuming, would work brilliantly for relics and other weird type games.

Loads of cards and other odds and sods!

Now these metal inserts really impressed me, lovely touch by megacon games, not sure if these are available after they hit retail?

One of the many cardboard punch out sheets, really nice art work and very nice quality,

Nice and thick fnar fnar!

So my over all impressions with the models and components is really good, has a super dungeon explore feel to it but with out the pain in the arse of gluing the stuff together. the sheer amount of models that I got was beyond mental and the likely hood of any paint touching them is slim to none! After all its a board game not a wargame!

Since the kickstarter finished they have been a couple of updates that I need to track down and suss out what have been changed which is a pain in the arse but hopefully not a massive problem.

As I tend to learn games quicker by watching Beasts of war are going to be doing a myth week, so I'll be keeping my eye out for that!

So for all you guys and girls that are waiting on your package for the last god knows how many months, its worth it!

Deadzone - Asterians spotted

After getting very excited about plastic squares and little connectors, I actually started looking at the models that came in the wave 2 care package,

I'm not going to fill the blog up with pictures of the models as various other blogs on the net are doing a great job of showing these off,

The models that caught my eye were the Asterians which is a bit of a surprise and normally I avoid skinny elven types, however for what ever reason I really like them and the rules for the faction/army are really nice, So I decided to get these sorted out for the campaign that I'm running at the Phat Cats,

So in about a week or so I've managed to get the following done, 

5 cypher's with noh rifles, 5 with charge gloves, 1 force rifle, 2 black talons, 1 sky razor, 1 missile launcher, 1 fission beam, overseer, prime and 2 drones with options for shield generator, plasma vortex and fission beam. Including the Asterian merc I've the best part of 300 points and as deadzone is based around 70 point missions its a tad overkill as usual!

5 cyphers with noh rifles one of the troops that you can take,

5 cyphers with charge gloves, the other troop type, combat specialist but with a 5+ combat stat and a 3+ shooting stat I don't see these being much use on the table top once they go toe to toe with plague dogs, swarms and stage 2's. Shame really as the poses are very dynamic

the black talons, a rare choice and with some very funky rules

The specialists, Missile launcher with AP4, force rifle designed for suppression and a fission beam which it it hits with a 3+ shoot stat is very dirty!

On the right you have the overseer which to date is the only leader model that the Asterians can field and at 25 points its a big point sink at 70 point unless your playing the larger point games, he has no real shooting weapons it all about buffing the force with his command points and can activate a whopping 7 models a turn!

The other guy is the prime, a pure close combat chap with an energy shield,

The sky razor, one of the coolest looking models that mantic have done personally, and I was expecting it to be aright pain in the arse to put together but to my surprise it went together with not major issues what so ever!

These are the cheapest models in the army at a mere 8 points so I'm hoping that mantic release these as single models as you can only get them in the reinforcement pack at the moment,

and finally onto the drones, I've also painted the fission beam turret I simply forgot to snap a pic.

these guys are interesting that the survive is 6+ so not particular good, and the various weapons that they are able to take gives you a nice bit of variation, the rules that these guys run with are quite nice with the gun platforms getting sentry which after reading the rules is a great rule and the shield generator seems to be a mastercard unit for keeping your firebase alive from all the gunfire.

Asterians look like a tricky force to play with the high points cost of the models you'll always be outnumbered unless its enforcers in peacekeeper armour!

The other thing I've noticed is that as they have construct they are always classed as alert so carn't be pinned however they are not able to go engraged and don't have brawler so if you fluff your roll the combat based guys are only on base dice after the first round of combat.

Add vulnerable into the mix where you only have to do one damage point rather than 2 to drop them they could become a very hard force to play if the enemy are totting lots of AP2 weapons.

The actual models themselves are quite nice, and the clean up wasn't too bad compared to some of the other mantic stuff in the past, when warpath goes live then I'll be having to make a hard choice of what faction to focus on as the Asterians are at the top of the rule of cool list.

Derby 2014 The aftermath!

Its was that time of year again and the Derby show was upon us,

This year it was the brainchild of Dan to run a saga zombie themed game and simply using the set up from the expo board earlier in the year with a couple of buildings scratch built by the machine known as Phil and painted by the lovey Jo we were good to go!

for the Saturday it was cut short due to my nephews party, however he did have jelly and cake and that'll always be a winner in my eyes!

The few hours I was there on the Saturday the table attracted an awful lot of interest and over the weekend the best part of 10 games were ran. Not sure if this was down to the coverage that gripping beast gave us on the facebook page prior to the show or the fact that we were in the middle of the trade stands, overall the setup was far better than previous years as the demo/gaming tables were mixed in with the trade stands.

I did manage to have a quick blast around and briefly look at the tables that were on show, the standard of the tables were really high and a good mix of time periods, 

A football riot game by anisty written by one of the guys I met who ran the westwind secrets of the third reich torney at the Derby show 4 years ago,

A lovey blast from the past!

A great game of Charlie don't surf, I think this won best in show?

A cracking looking WW1 table, playing using the last man standing rules, I spent a bit of time chatting to these guys as the overall look was really nice and very well executed,

Wing of war, I liked the cotton wool clouds, very simple very effective!

A few shots of our table,

So...

2012 Honourable mention for Normandy Operation Goodwood,
2013 Best in show for Yom Kippur,
2014 Best Participation game

An outstanding concept and well executed by Dan, the rest of the guys were simply along for the roller coaster ride, We also had a number of other show organisers pop over and invite us to various shows that are coming up in the next 6ish months which is awesome feedback and makes all the prep well worth while.

So onto the "loot" for the weekend, quite a haul compared to the usual "I'll pick up a few bits" in the whopping pile you have...

1000 point shaltari dropzone army
Saga Crescent & Cross
deadmans hand the legend supplement & 2 blisters of cacti
9 addational Umann and 3 nappa for relic's
warzone brotherhood guardiani Oblati, legion Nepharite of Algeroth and Black Widow.
Valhalla rulebook, this one caught our fancy the most so will be looking forward to giving it a crack!

This lot will have a big impact on the "pledge" well thats as soon as I get the old info back on track! 

Overall this year was once again a cracking show and the overall feel was good, chatting to a few traders as I was wandering around they seemed to have a good show and numbers were very busy!

So all we have to do is sort out the TWO boards for salute and suss out what we're gonna take to Derby 2015 assuming they'll have us ;)