The Pledge - November

And before you know it the month has vanished in a puff of smoke or like my death company army in a hail of multi shot battle cannon rounds from a triple knight list.

Yes it was a whitewash but hey that's the whole point of the cock punch themed series, Apparently next up will be Keith and Dan playing 30K now that's gonna be one to watch!

So what did I manage this month?

Painted - 74

Bought - 39

Difference + 35

So blasting out the death company in record time and the oathsworn bits certainly had a positive impact on the purchases this month which were the new necromunda which I'd already accounted for in my head.

And its very very nice! not done anything with it yet need to decide how to build up my guys once I've read rules. 

However the 2000AD foundry "sale" was a curve ball as these models I've wanted for years so picked up the ABC warriors, Johnny Alpha and his boys from SD, Sam Slade & Hoagy, I also had the semi cooked shopping at Crisis in the form of a dropship and a APC for AVP, and after much discussion with Mr Upton its appears that an AVP demo board could be in the works...

With the death company done I decided to revisit my huge amount of unfinished or not even started projects and blasted out some Freeborn for GoA.

The over look I'm really happy with and all I need to do is get some trigger time with the guys at the club and I'll see what else I'll be adding, the hivemind of facebook have suggested and X-launcher and a striker attack skimmer.

These will be added once I've painted the second batch of infantry up, after that I'll be aiming for December to be a month of finishing off stuff that's been on my painting desk for way too long, so lots of random models for mainly This is not a test which at some point I will get some games in and get the terrain started that I've collected for the last year or so!

Another 40K army! The Death Company

With the continued enthusiasm for 8th Edition I've cracked out a Blood angel death company force using the vanguard order of battle for maximum in your face play!

This whole lot came about after a late night discussion with Mr Smith about what would army did you always want to do but couldn't under the previous rules when we used to play back in 3rd & 4th Ed 40K

for me it was always the death company, I wasn't bothered about the rest of the blood angels always thought they looked naff however psycho's in black armour now that floated my boat in a serial killer way (this was before I joined the ranks of chaos!)

A couple of the guys at the Best Club in Leicester, that's the phat cats if you've been living under a rock for the last 15 years (all others are mealy Chinese clones and wanna-be's) were having a discussion about dirty 8th lists and knights came up, I threw the gauntlet down and the Phat Cats Cock Punch match was born!

So I had about 4 weeks to do a 2K list, It was all stuck together and I'd painted a test unit the rest needed doing,

And in the traditional Anton way - Mission complete! 

All the boys in there glory! 

OOP forgeworld dreadnought drop pod, its useful knowing some people! 

The flying skip, I hated this model when it first came out back in the day, It still looks naff however it was a doddle to paint and I look at it as a flying taxi! 

two dreads ready to party

So three units sporting the latest in assisted movement gear

and 12 guys who ride the fun bus - note the lack of nipple armour!

Lemartes and Charlie Chaplin ready to educate the faithless,

So this was my first time at giving black a crack and how it turned out I'm really quite happy with it, the drop pod and Storm raven I was a bit nervous of doing as I wanted to give the airbrush a run out on them but yup it worked out great and thanks go to Adam for the technique on doing the black, Kris for the suggestion on doing the red crosses so so easy and Steve over at Barwell body shop for the chat about techniques and the like!

I'm not expecting to win however IF I can drop one knight then I'll be a happy man, Also the battle report will be filmed and uploaded onto youtube so once its been edited and all that I'll bang a link up!

However now that I've done this challenge I'm not too sure what to paint next, next show is to be robin in Feb but until then I've nothing planned, So any suggestions would be welcome.

First look - Burrows & Badgers

Whilst monging at the Derby show a couple of months ago the K47 table that I was trying to get people to play on was near  the Oathsworn sales stand,

lets just say that I spent a while mooching at the stuff over the 2 days!

So after picking up some bits and splashing some paint on the models I decided to run a demo night with the stuff that I picked up, 

I decided to also paint up the scenery as well,

so the warband looking all pretty based up! 

I also found this kicking around on my painting table so a quick job later and it was sorted,

Normally when I put demo nights on at the club I'll get about half the people that sign up on the book of face, however this time I had 5 players rock up including two from Stratford! 

We all picked a model and went for it hell for leather, a few rules I got wrong however after some re-reading by Dan it slotted into place nicely,

The shew knight errant was in beast mode and the rabbit archer ended up climbing a tree to escape his frenzy!  

 whilst everyone was running around the 2 foxes were going toe to toe!

We played 2 games as it was a fairly quick turn around on the first game and the second game went for an objective grab in the middle,that was a bit better with the game lasting alot longer!


Gameplay - its an alternative activation system where you move then perform one action, Don't make the mistake I did and thought you get two actions! Each animal type has a stat line that dependent on the number is the dice type that you roll, and you have skills that come with both the animal type and weapons that you arm them with. 

Creating your warband is really simple as you choose your models and put upto 6 items on each model. If you have certain types of armour then this reduces the amount of stuff that you can carry. you can also carry trinkets and herbs for various effects in the game and the herbs you can use whilst casting to get better spells and the like off. You also have alliances that give bonus' as well as dictate what system of magic that you can cast.

Lastability - The current rule set has a campaign system which gives you a chance to play linked games rather than just one offs, As long as you have people willing to give this crack then it could become a regular game at your local club.

Models - This is what attracted to me in the first place they are something completely different to what I'm used to and they were really nice models to paint. The range that you can get at the moment is quite varied and the price isn't too bad compared to other systems that I play.

Overall the system isn't too bad, the 2nd edition rule book is planned for release at salute so it'll be interesting to see if the "perfect roll" rule (+7 to your result) stays within the system as we found it quite powerful in the first game and switched it out to an exploding dice mechanic which seemed to give it some control. I'll certainly be picking up a few more bits and bobs and giving it another crack once I've had some more time with the book!

If you want to know more and download the free 1.5 rule book have a look burrows and badgers

Crisis 2017

Once again the Phat cats demo team hit mainland Europe like the 11th Armoured Division and we headed up to Antwerp via Bastone!

On the way we picked up part of the Hysterical team...

so chatty....

whilst me and Lee basically treated this as lads weekend away! 

getting the shopping in for the trip, and a fuck ton of beer for Lee's lovely wife! 

we headed towards Bastone and I was really looking forward to this being a band of brothers fan I snapped a few pics at bastone..

Sherman M1a something... 

being adult like in the various short film bits 

thought it was ironic for Rob! 

Now this did impress me I've not seen a hetzer up close and personal before and its a real low silloute and quite small! superb looking bit of kit!

The classic kublewagon, I'd quite happily chug around in one of these on a day to day basis! 

one of the theatres that explained a personal point of view of the battle

doesn't look that bad from this side.... 

yea those poor tankers! note how the penetration hit is pretty much bang on the star, I've read that the Germans used them as aim points but this really did hit the brutality of it home! 

the shrapnel damage inside was shocking. enough said on that one! 

and the memorial that is just next to the museum

a massive statue of one of the most iconic pictures of the victory celebrations in the US

So thoughts on the Bastone part of the trip, it was "ok" the last two years have been far more moving with regards to the human sacrifice that was made and this didn't have the same impact for some reason?

Onto Antwerp!!

** Advance warning **

this is about 150 pics, and it basically involved me running around blasting pics, No details were taken and I apologise for that in advance! 

operation get back to Antwerp in one piece! 

the Queue from the outside, huge amount of people! 

 

some quick promo shots for the book of face! 

Lee in his element!

So onto the tables! 

an actual demo table just for kids, bloody superb! 

lovely Japanese table

never sick of seeing Russian green! 

more jungle goodness,

this is a scratch built building, very very nice and the chap explained how he did it all, 

these looked superb, I think they were hand made? 

these 2 modern tables I was really impressed by, the sub base I loved and would love to have a go on it! 

the classic 40k gets a roll out

 

lord of the rings! 

a stonking test of Honor board, the painting on the models was draw dropping! 

some K47 loving

the maus was a good touch

and an underground base for good measure! 

some kind of north American type game, the attention to detail was great 

Fall out, looks "alright" ;) 

the spectre board, again lovely work 

this looked great and the amount of work was bonkers! 

something a bit more unusual

some funky looking post apocalyptic type terrain 

John carters mars type game, 

this I really liked, the scatter really made it look nice, 

a weird post apoloc type game, the over grown jungle look was well executed 

African themed game, liked the village alot! 

now these boys completely silenced me! I've never seen so much effort go into a single table! 

The Anton seal of approval!! 

Ed doing his thing! 

I might have gone via Prodos......

Lee still doing his thing! 

Towards the end of the day, we'd drank a "few" by this point! 

the post show pic, superb work all around! 

Operation on the Lash is about to kick off!

So after having many laughs with the guys including the magabotato boys lets say what happens in the field stays in the field!

So exit plan engaged and off to blighty we headed via a V weapons site!

Now this place was very educational, and pulled no punches with regards to the slave labour that was used to build these weapons and bases. Hence only pics on the actual weapons it was quite surreal walking through tunnels that were dug out by hand and thinking about working conditions and witness statements from survivors and what the Nazi's did. 

And that was that! 

Crisis done, Superb trip as always and massive thanks to Lee for the epic driving and not killing me on the way despite forgetting my passport......