I Carn't keep away from Kickstarter - Open Combat from Second Thunder

Its my achilles heal and I've been really good resisting the temptation of jumping on various projects that have popped up over the last few months.

However the resistance has been overcome...

One of the chaps that I meet at the Loughborough Dice Devils Kings of War torney has done what all gamers dream of doing and wrote his own rules system,

its a historical/fantasy based skirmish system but with a really nice twist that you stat up your own models which reminds me very much of gruntz and I find that design your own units great fun.

I stumbled across this via the Meeples and Miniatures pod cast where Carl & Gav discussed the game and after listening to that I decided that I wanted to back this project, not only to support Carl with his game but also its something that sounds great fun! 

you've loads of info on the Second Thunder website...

www.secondthunder.com

so if your tempted then head over to the kickstarter page

open-combat-miniature-skirmish-game

and if you've a couple of hours have a listen to the podcast

meeples and miniatures_ep136

go on you know you want to, after all its only £18!

Barwell Body Shop - Wargamers airbush course

So last weekend I wandered over to Sunny Barwell in the depths of Leicestershire for a 2 day course at Barwell Bodyshop.

I went in with a fairly open mind and a harsh choice of either I crack this airbrushing lark or stick to the traditional brush technique that I've used for the last *cough* "few" years.

The day started with the basics of how an airbrush works and how to strip it for cleaning and loads of tips from Steve and Frank for the complete novice, 

It was then action stations and we spent a while doing lines, circles and the like so that I could get a feel for the amount of paint I was using and look at techniques for certain looks and effects, which was really interesting as the versatility that you have is quite impressive.

I was asking questions throughout both days and the chaps were more than willing to give in depth technical answers.

We were told to bring scrap models that could be messed up and in the usual Anton fashion I bought a fair few as  didn't know how quick or slow it would be done painting wise, however I did get outdone by a chap sitting opposite me who had loads tanks and the like, some really nice kits as well.

I decided to pick on the stug that I've had for a fair while and after a bit of playing about I'd managed to get the base coat of colour on.

I was really chuffed with it and was feeling eager to give it go when I got home, Until I got conned into babysitting for my sister, but I did get to watch American Sniper.

So day two started off with a quick refresh of what we covered off on the previous day and warming up with a bit of pratice and we were let loose once more, this time on painting a 28mm model.

I though that emperors children colour scheme would be good to try as IF I ever did sell a lung to fund a 30K army then these are the guys that I would do, painting this small I found quite frustrating due to the lack of flat surfaces and a few times I wanted to do more on the model but had to step back and stop myself.


Once I'd got the confidence on the marine biker we were suggested that we did one of our own infantry models or could "borrow" some from the workshop from the reaper bones range.


I'd threw into my box of goodness some scorpions from Myth as I've a crazy amount of models and a couple wouldn't matter.

I painted each one slightly different, one with ghost tints or inks/washes as I know them and the other in a zenith lighting style and then I redid the black in the recesses of the armour plates after some "encouragement" from the guys sitting close to me and the final result I'm really happy with.

Overall the weekend was really good and well worth the money, I picked loads of info with regards to airbrushing in general and from wandering in on the Saturday morning not having a clue what I was doing to walking away on the Sunday after noon with the stug camo'd up and some basic weathering on the tracks for good measure.

The two days were at a good pace and catered really well for the difference in learning curves that were present within the class.

There was lunch provided on both days as well as snacks and hot and cold drinks throughout the day, So being well fed and watered was a surefire winner for me!

I finished off the bases on the scorpions and put some finishing touches to the stug in the form of sponge weathering and more mud weathering.

If your pondering about if you should or shouldn't hopefully the pictures of the finished results should convince you and that was just after a couple of days. The real bonus is that they carry a huge amount of paint so as its only 20 mins down the road I can wander over and get supplies when ever I like and if your at Hammerhead this weekend they guys will be there so pop over and have a chat its a real eye opener!

www.barwellbodyworks.com

So finally onto the "pledge"

its been a superb month!

bought - 55
painted - 160!

most of those were 10mm Napoleonic french which when they are all finished will be posted up. 

The Anton goes back to school.

I picked up a airbrush and a compressor a while back and had a play about with it now and then but never really understood the dark arts that is airbrushing.

I've watched a fair few you tube vids on the  subject so understand the actual theory quite well its just the practical aspect that I'm not very confident with.

One of the guys from the club Jake, has taken to air bushing like a duck to water and is producing some superb work, check out his facbook page and give him some love...

Jake_thepainted

Mid last year I spotted an advert for a local business doing a two day wargaming airbrush for beginners course, now it wasn't cheap but when you tot up the amount of hours and all that jazz its not a bad deal.

So in the true "Anton" bugger it attitude I booked myself on for the course and in the email confirmation I've been told to bring models to pratice on.

Well two days worth of solid painting I figure I need a fair few to say the least....

so in that lot, I've some terrain for the warzone/AVP board, mushrooms are for the relics board, crates from deadzone, 15mm panthers, 28mm germans, 15mm martian front tanks, some infantry from myth and a couple of malifaux bits. The gorgeous model at the back is my warzone Icrus and I can't wait to get some paint on that bad boy!

I'm hoping that lot will keep me busy for the weekend and I'll be hoping to take plenty of pictures throughout the two days and track progress of the class, that's assuming that I actually have time and remember!!

If you are interested then check out Barwell Bodyworks http://www.barwellbodyworks.com/

Firestorm Armada - The up and coming Dice Devils Campaign.

Recently the Dice Devils have moved their gaming night from the Thursday to a Tuesday meaning that depending on my shift I've an additional night to get my geek on.

In the last couple of weeks I've had two great games of firestorm and Dystopian wars and Dave has come up with a great idea in the form of a Firestorm campaign and as always that's an excuse for me to collect something new and shiny,

So in the deal of the century I obtained some Ba'Kash so these should be a good start point for the campaign fleet with the added bonus that I can use my Dindrenzi that I did a few years back.

As its been an awful long time since I used the Dindrenzi no doubt spartan have released some cool funky stuff since then however I'm trying to stay away from expanding on a already reasonable sized fleet!

As usual the golden question came up of how to paint them as I'm not really feeling the gold look that is suggested by the box art

One suggestion that I got from Ben was orange with pink! but that got me thinking and after a quick brain storming session with Grant I'm going with orange and purple and I night throw something else in there for good measure, It's gonna be razzle dazzle space camo!

Next week we've a 500 point warm up game to lock down some of the rules for our fleets then the campaign kicks off shortly after that, one of the things that we've agreed on is to have painted fleets for each game so as the campaign goes on and the points increase it'll help us all keep the motivation to keep on going.

If you've been tempted by firestorm for a while or never heard of it wander over to spartan games as they are doing free down load for the rules as well as the fleet guides.

www.spartangames.co.uk

also add the fact that they have just announced the HALO line its going to be certainly one to watch for the future! 

I'm not a huge fan boy of the HALO games, they are good and a laugh on multi player from back in the day but story line wise I'm not overly bothered, One thing that was bought up on my facebook page is the limited forces that could be fielded as it stands at the moment I've been told that you've got 4 factions but would this be enough the keep the game fresh?

I've similar concerns with the terminator game with skynet and the humans but then if you look at x-wing that's only got the rebels and the imperials and only recently have they added the bounty hunters, so if the rules for the HALO and terminator systems are rock solid then it can be done.

What are your thoughts?

Deadzone - Send in the meat shield!

I mentioned in my previous post that I'd painted some deadzone zombies for the final campaign turn, these are a mixture of the ones that I picked up in the deadzone kickstarter and some that I picked up on one of the many facebook trading pages,

So the unwashed masses!! 

a fairly basic paint scheme but will do the job lovely for the deadzone game, 

and there you have it 45 hungry zombies ready to eat!!

Kings of War Kingdom of Men - تَكْبِير & the pledge!

After last years cracking Battle Masters at Loughborough Dice Devils, I was chatting to a couple of the hardcore KOW players at the torney and the usual discussion of what would you do as your next army.

I'd come across a couple of kingdom of men armies and the "boring" humans took my fancy but rather than using GW empire models or perry war of the roses that I've seen most people done I went a bit left field and decided to theme my army on the middle east.

So using a box of the gripping beast plastic arab spearmen I set to work on my first horde of spearmen,

I managed to get the models painted and sorted quite quickly but I was waiting on the base from warbases, as I'd pledged to get these guys done for the Mantic Madness facebook page,  however the post office let me down and nothing turned up...

 A quick email to warbases and they sent out another parcel and hey ho one day late but done and dusted!

the bulk of the models are the gripping beast plastics with perry command type guys, 

I decided to base the unit in a ragtag type look rather than super neat ranks, my only challenge was how to base the unit and paint in between the models, So I did the base first with the basic highlight, clipped the model off the plastic tab that would normally be used and got some green stuff and super glued the infantry model direct to the base.

 I did the above technique row by row so stuck the guys down, banged on the clumps and PVA'd the static grass, then rinse and repeat for the next 3 rows. My only concern is the models staying put on the unit tray, however time will tell on this one!

Overall I'm really liking these guys and the official start of the Kingdom of Men is well underway with the Battlemasters booked in for the 12th September I plan on taking these guys to Sharad's torney, however the spearman horde costs 180 points!

So I've a fair bit of painting to do for these guys, next on my list might be...

a 20 man unit of these guys, I'll more than likely use them as penitents mob and have a Imam/preacher getting them all frothy!

Or get a couple of these beasts throw in some cav and these will serve me well as cav units

I've also got a couple of these on the way via kickstarter, so camel cannons are go! 

So onto the pledge for the new year...

Bought - 61
Painted - 72

I took full advantage of the relics sale and that package rocked up earlier in the month hence the significant "bought" figure, as for painting I've done a large chunk of zombies for deadzone for the last mission that I've got planned in at the Leicester phat cats and these will be showcased on the blog at some point, I've basically been lazy at home and busy at work hence the lack of updates.

As for Feb I've finished the arabs, gonna make a start on my Survivor series pledge which is martian front infantry as well as my mantic madness pledge which will be some of the new plastic enforcers.