The Anarchy of Anton!

KGN - Get on the supply train....

2012-01-27T20:00:00.001Z

So my new bits for KGN started to arrive earlier this week and this is some of what I got...

So a very shiny SdKfv 252 with ammo trailer, the detail on this model is outstanding!! it has so many delicate pieces that come with it I'd say its more for display or diorama rather than wargaming.

So Hanz the medic as a size comparison,

I thought it looked a bit small personally but after some google-fu....

its pretty much bang on!

the trailer unit, the really nice thing about this kit is that you have the options of having the door opened or closed and the detail inside is lovely, but in the usual "Anton" way I closed the doors.

The other bit that I got was from the Britannia miniatures line which is now been taken over by Grubby Tanks,

So a horse and cart, some thing that sums up the german army quite well as most pictures that you see they used alot of horse's to drag there kit around it wasn't all halftracks and prime movers.

Again Hanz jumping in on the picture cheeky little monkey!

the other side

and the two next to each other as scale/size guide.

So the links to the relevant websites,
www.milicast.com
/www.grubbytanks.com

The customer service from both places was great, the milicast order arriving far quicker than I expected, and the Grubby Tanks order having a hand written note apologising for the delay!

So all I need to to is splash some paint on these and they'll be ready to be shot up by the RAF!

Mordhiem Crew - Armand's Animators

2012-01-25T18:40:00.000Z

Mordhiem!!!

Yep its another "blast from the past" I've been "invited" into a up and coming Mordhiem Campaign at the Leicester Phat Cats, and after quite a bit of chin scratching I decided to wander down the undead route.

The initial plan was to pick up bits off ebay as they tend to go quite cheap now days, well that was until GW announced with there new sales tactic of two weeks notice that Vampire Counts are being re-released... Humm well that put a big hole in my plan as the price for undead went through the roof.

But I held out to see what shiney new stuff was going to be release and a couple of bits took my fancy but nothing usable in mordhiem.

A flying undead alter thingy!

Don't think I'd be able to get away with that as being a mount for my Vampire ;)

So onto the Crew:

Vampire - Sword & Mace
Necromancer - Bow, Sword & Spell to be rolled at the first game
Dreg #1 - Mace
Dreg #2 - Mace
Dreg #3 - Guess what?? Mace!

Henchmen Ghouls - 3
Henchmen Ghouls - 3

and that lot comes to 497

The vampire, necromancer & ghouls were dead easy to choose the models for, but the dregs not so easy, needed to be human type models but scum looking guys?

so after a bit of chit chat with my various muse's down the local shop empire flagellants were the way forward!

So the hero's of the warband

The three dreg's I decided not to bother converting them just used them straight out my bits box!

the newish plastic necromancer

and the big man Armand, I managed to get old of the last metal one in the shop for a whopping £7 but looking on the GW website the "finecast" version is £14.50!

I wasn't too sure what colour to do the winged arm, and in the end I decided to make red my connecting colour.

So just waiting for the ghouls to come in the post I looked at the GW ones and didn't really like them....

but the mantic ones....

are much better personally...

so if they are anything like the zombies that I got last year these will be a doddle to paint up!

And talking about paint I've now an ebay shop selling Vallejo Model Color as well as army painter products, go have a look ;)

G.C. Gaming Supplies

Cutlass Crew & Trollbloods Kriel

2012-01-18T14:45:00.000Z

Well Its been a real slow month painting wise so far,

With being sucked into the MMO world of starwars The Old Republic and deciding to take the plunge and start up an ebay shop supplying paint and the like time has been precious recently.

I've been making some headway into the trollbloods that I got at the end of last year and a friend gave me a load of his stuff now he's found a new "toy" to play with ;)

so the champions unit,

I've the UA to paint up to go with these guys and combining that with the champion hero that I did as my tester model its a filthy unit!

bung some stone scribes behind them maxed out on focus and the champions become armour 18 with P&S 12 once I get the UA done for these!

so the trolls are coming along nicely and once I've stripped the bits that I've been given I'll have quite a bit to play about with!

So with Nick's Cutlass Campaign about to kick off this week at the club and spurred on by Coopers post on his blog ( the mountain of metal ) with his dipped pirate girls which look really nice...

So I figured I'd better get me ass into gear and splash some paint on the Orc's that I picked up at salute last year,

So the Admiral and his three orc veterans armed to the teeth and ready to go, Just a coat of anti-shine as I've a feeling that they'll be spending most of the game lying down due to injuries.

I've another three on the way from black scorpion miniatures and it looks like he's moving over to resin for his models so I'm looking forward to comparing the cast quality with the metal ones above.

The crew that I'm going to run with for the campaign is...

Admiral:
Cutlass, Dagger, Parrot

Orc Vet #1:
2 Cutlass, Dagger

Orc Vet #2:
Cutlass, Dagger, Duelling Pistol

Orc Vet #3:
Axe, Dagger, Duelling Pistol

Orc #1:
Cutlass, Dagger, Ships Pistol

Orc #2:
Cutlass, Dagger, Ships Pistol

Orc #2:
Cutlass, Dagger, Ships Pistol

and that lot rolls in at $496, now I'm expecting to recruit the goblins as the campaign goes on, with the few games that I've played so far recruiting orc's & vets is quite rare hence so many to start with.

Kampfgruppe Normandy, Hold the line!!!!

2012-01-13T19:00:00.000Z

With the Previous game of KGN late last year myself and Nick decided to sort out another game, Its was still going to be an all German training misson...

I used the Infantry company list consisting of:

Battalion HQ

Infantry Platoon
88 Support
HMG Support
Stug Platoon upgraded to "G"'s
Tiger 1 Support
Forward Observer with 2 dedicated 105's

Nick Rolled in with:

Panther Platoon
Jagpanther
King Tiger
Infantry Platoon

I think that was it? not too sure as none of his reserves came on!

After some further reading as a Infantry army I could opt to declare a defence battle so I'm entitled to by defences for the army, and decided to dig in the 88 & the tiger.

The mission was hold the line and in a nutshell I had to stop Nick capturing the two objectives on my side of the table or breaking my moral limit.

So with the infantry set up and hugging cover I awaited the big cats to roll on....

and they rolled in well!! I have two units on covering fire, and neither of them spotted the king tiger and the dug in tiger paid the price!

The start of the game,

the 88 being eye'd up by a panther

lots of running infantry....

the 88 with a cracking shot, but it bounced off the front of the panther, much to Nick's delight! through out the game the 88 made Nick sweat quite a bit even though it didn't do a great deal in my eyes.

infantry waiting for the big cat to get closer...

Finally the 88 hits & kills its first armoured target!

and a panzerfaust armed infantry manages to take out another!

so its looking quite sweet, but it could all go wrong?

The forward observer brings the 105's bang in between the two panthers suppressing them both and Nick only has the Jagpanther & the king mooching about on the table,

but the Jagpanther pops the dug in 88 and Nick gets his second kill of the game,

whilst the infantry go on Safari...

and using the hedge rows as cover sprint to keep up with the armour....

and out of no where the reserves roll on, Stug-tastic!

neither of our reserves had come on by turn 4, and this was a lucky break for me as I'd only got hand held anti tank running about,

So the King tiger has got to be the luckiest tank in the world!

In one turn it survived two infantry squads shooting at it with panzerfaust's, being suppressed my the command team, and all three StuG's either failing to spot it or missing it all together!! I rolled quite a few 1's!

and due to the time we called it there, and I won by a couple of moral points.

as we were still stumbling our way though the system not that many questions came up but as we start to understand more the "shopping" list gets bigger!

so the shopping list...

222 armoured car for a recce platoon
Opel radio truck
Kublewagon & crew
Horse drawn supply cart
Schwimmwagen with crew
2 panzerchreck teams
75mm infantry gun with crew
3 bike messagers
105mm field gun with crew
sniper, officer, NCO

So much for "cutting" back eh!

The hunt is on.... Alternative Necromunda Spyrer's

2012-01-09T21:48:00.000Z

"if it bleeds we can kill it"

One of the guys at the local club wants to run a campaign, but this one has genuinely got me excited!!

Necromunda is being dusted off...

And the hunters are leaping over the wall ready for the prey...

these are going to be my counts as Spyrers, I did look at the ones on the GW site and about spat my tea all over my desk when I saw the price...

and remembered that I managed to get these from ebay some time last year, as they are a tad small I've gone to town on the bases to increase the height and make the poses look cool.

Since doing these, I was mooching about beasts of war the other day and found a link to these bad boys....

now out of stock... Booo.....

I'm so tempted to order the top two, not too keen on the third one and the last one is now sold out and they are limited to 100 models!

www.predastore.ch

Anyway I'm gonna stop waffling on about them before I crack open the old credit card!!

but before I sign off does anyone have a copy of the Citadel Journal issue 22, that has predator rules in it.....

Why hello 2012....

2012-01-01T12:25:00.000Z

Well where did 2011 go!

looking back its been a right mash up gaming and painting,

I started historical gaming in the form of Black Powder with the mighty French and Hail Cesar with the sexy celts, some thing that I'd promised myself I'd "never" do but I suppose variety is the spice of life!

I did the usual pilgrimage to Salute and as always picked up a new system in the form of cutlass, and with a campaign that'll be kicking off this month I should really crank out the Orc's for that one!

Painted two flames of war armies in the form of the late British & PAVN and managed to get games of them against the "super" Cooper, hopefully more will follow this year.

Finished off a my epic army that I've had for about 15 years!! and now waiting for Spencer & Will to sort out the campaign that inspired me to dust them off and bring them back from the dead!

Picked up Secrets of the third reich as a gamble system and went to the GT with a complete painted army and walked away with best sportsman as well as meeting some real nice guys and hope to hook up with them this year too, maybe with a new force (if the Japanese get released) and managed to get 3/4 of a themed table done.

Got myself the starter set to bushido and now there are sitting in the the local shop looking all shiney...

Grabbed ANOTHER three systems, Saga from gripping beast and MERC's and enjoyed the Saga game against Lee and with the new expansion coming early this year should be interesting to see if others decide to pick it up, and hopefully get a game of MERC's in with the guys over at Portal gaming in Burton. The third system was Kampfgruppe Normandy and I managed to get a game in against Nick in the week between Chrimbo & new years and even though I got my ass spanked (on the table I might add) it's a well thought out system and I can see alot more of this being played.

and finally....

THE PLEDGE!

This is the second year that I've continued to put my model purchases and what I've painted into a spreadsheet so that I can reduce that mountain on unpainted models that every established games should have!

Bought:

2010       2011

469          1238

Well I think thats the historical gaming bumping that lot up! Thank god there not as expensive as GW eh ;) working it out 695 models were the Might French and the Sexy Celts!

Painted:

2010       2011

513         1245

So once more I managed to paint more than I bought, admitly it was only by the skin of my teeth for 2011, with a positive figure of 7 models!

so this is what tipped it over the edge...

So the remaining bits of the german infantry...

and the test model for my trollblood army,

When I first saw trollbloods back at Salute 2009? I thought that they looked like big orc's and kept with that vision, I've a basic box set that I need to strip and with the odds and sods that I've picked up so far going to build up the force nice and slowly.

I'm going with the Orange heraldry as a nice counter to the green skin as there is so much armour on this champion you carn't really see though.

So marching confidently into 2012 I'll be kicking off my business in the form of GC Gaming Supplies, but more on this another time...

The "Pledge" will roll over into 2012 and I'm confident that I can make it 3 in a row for painting more than I buy, with the pending 6th Ed coming out for 40K the last bits of the chaos should be blasted out and IF its any good then I can foresee the ranks of the dark legions swelling even more!

Assuming I can peel myself away from Starwars I'm hoping to get done:

Finish off the 20mm Germans for KGN, but no doubt I'll pick up more as well as some US stuff at some point!

Finish off the SOTR board I've only a few bits left and it's done, just that final effort!

Finish off the Plague reaper that I picked up from Ebay and try using some MIG pigment weathering powders on it.

and thats it really, if I can get those done before I pick up anything else then I'll be happy!

Also thanks for all the comments/views for last year I'm not one for stats and all that Jazz, but people reading my random whaffle with pictures of my stuff thrown in is bloody cool ;)

and as its kinda still chrimbo/new years day.....

First Look; Kampfgruppe Normandy & Instant mould

2011-12-28T23:00:00.000Z

I managed to get a game of Kampfgruppe Normandy in taking advantage of my "free" childminder (mother) and headed on down the shop with Nick & Coops,

we decided to play 250 points and it would be Nick's SS panzer's up against my German Infantry,

We both looked at the huge amount of scenarios and thought escalation would be the easiest to start with, now straight away the deployment rules made us both "ooohh" with the Recce elements starting on turn one, the vanguard coming on in turn two and the main force coming on in turn three, but we missed the bit where D6 units come on each turn though, which wouldn't have made much difference but would have been a laugh to see bits and bobs turn up.

Nicks armoured fist!

the 88 with a commanding field of fire...

the armoured fist continues to roll forward as it comes into range of the 88, the range for some of the weapons doesn't quite make sense (example is the 88) as the max is 48" for all weapons and depending on the range banding depends on the hit roll,

my end of the table with the main force walking on,

and some swift movement starting to get in postion ready for some panthers...

the panthers & tiger halt to start taking some pot shots, now the intresting thing about the shooting is you need to spot your target before you can open up which is a nice twist on the shooting rules, and you have two type of shooting, Supperssion so you can prevent the unit from activating and if you do suprress them you have to take a moral counter to get them going again or direct where you try and slot some of them,

Nick didn't manage to do any damage from his first salvo, and another really nice twist is that each tank has AMMO! so you choose what mixture of armour pericing and high explosive you want and as you shoot you mark off your ammo, when your out you bring a supply truck up and rearm you tank, now this could be alot of admin but with a little prep easily sorted via excel or word.

and some more jigging about and still waiting, at this point the panzer IV and the stuG opened up on the panther and rounds bounced off it, so the infamous panther started to live up to its name...

the view of the heroic crew...

before they both went down to a round of shooting from one panther....

but I get my revenge a few turns later with a broadside from a stuG

and the Aeriel view, it wasn't looking good the HMG team and the infantry team were being shot up in the woods and if they went my right flank would collapse.. meanwhile on the left flank Hanz in his command stuG had claimed his second panther and was starting to make the SS panzergrenadiers look a tad nervous...

I threw more infantry into the right flank, and a lone panzerfaust failed to pop the tiger, and the last remaining panther drove in to the woods cutting the HMG team down and securing the objective,

at this point my moral was close to popping....

and a cheeky shot from the panther popped a stuG and it was game over!

So thoughts and feelings on the system...

Gameplay

Some really nice rules in this system from the off board support, the random air support that "could" turn up, the spotting the target before shooting and so much more!! the rule book is a hefty tomb and some of the rules take a bit of getting used to over all once you get into the flow it plays really quick!

Models

Its 1/72, 1/76, 20mm so there are literally thousands of kits out there for this scale vary in price but the armourfast, plastic solider company and SHQ all mix in fine and looked nice on the table with plenty of randoms coming over to have a look.

Lastability

This one's a keeper! I've tried various WW2 systems and most have been platoon skirmish type games with this one combined arms is your friend as nick discovered with the 105mm off board support, the only draw back is that you have only 3 nations to choose from and both the British & US get two lists each and the Germans get 4, but what I've read on the miniature pages new lists are coming out in the new year via wargames illustrated and they've been play testing tobrok and the russian front so its looking hopeful.

So Instant mold, its been kicking around for a while now and until recently I've not really been that interested in it,

With the stowage packs that I picked up from skytex the other month I figured I'd give the stuff a crack to see if I could pump out some copies.

so three sticks in boiling(ish) water and pushing the mold stuff over some bits let it cool down pop those out and bang some green stuff in.

so the actual bits popped out when the green stuff had cured a bit, most of it was pretty good to be honest, I'm not too sure about the panther tracks to I'll re-do that one me thinks.

so before today's game I wanted to get all the bits painted that I wanted to use so I peeled my ass off Starwars and blasted out the three stuG's and another two panzer IV's giving the monthly pledge a healthy boost, but looking at the actual year end figures I'm about 14 models short to break even for the year so I'm gonna crank out the remaining german infantry and see if I can get the first model done for one of my 2012 armies....

I'm quite happy with the logs on the command stuG

Till next time...

he might look like my Uncle Paul but this guy is superb....

20mm Germans, Flames of war & new direction....

2011-12-22T21:13:00.000Z

well as anticipated its been a slow month...

Server: Kellian Jarro
Toon's name: Kelmoch

so if your playing Starwars The Old Republic then look me up if you on the same server,

However before I lost my mind to the MMO, I managed to get some of the 20mm Germans done.

So I've built my force around the normal grenadier list in Kampgruppe Normandy, since then I've discovered that a couple of the other lads have also gone for the krauts so I'll be picking up an American force in the new year to give people the choice of what to play against, or what I fancy ;)

So, you've a full infantry platoon of 3 squads and command, MG42 team, Supreme commander, 88 Anti-tank gun and a forward arty team, and I've still one pretty full sprue of Germans left to do what I want with.

close up's, I've gone with the battlefront paint set for ease,

the LMG teams & MG42 team the MG42 is from SHQ miniatures look a little "skinny" but from 12" away slot in fine.

the Supreme command team and forward observer team

The good old 88, just the actual gun bit to do which is gonna be no problem, assuming I can peel myself off my latest crack habit!

and this is how it came....

an amazing amount of detail for a 20mm model!

and the test paint for the panzer IV, I ended up painting the numbers on by hand as the skytrex ones that I picked up a while back are naff personally,

so with the other two panzer IV's and three stuG's on my painting table about half way through I'll see if I can blast those out before the end of the month.

So the flames guys have announced a 3rd Ed and being the nice chaps that they are you get a free 3rd Ed mini rule book if you have the current hardback, see the link below for more info...

3rd ED info

I think this is a great move once more.. think if GW did this....

And what of this "new direction"

well I was told a couple of weeks ago that there are going to be redundancies at my work, so IF I do go which I'll find out mid Jan I've decided to take the plunge into the big bad world of retail/online retailers for gaming supplies.

I'll start of with paint etc.. and if its worth continuing then I'll move onto models etc, now I'm gonna be careful not to rock the boat with the local shop as the chap is a cracking lad however IF you was going to buy online what would you buy?

Also one thing that I was going to do was commission work to build up some funds, but not sure where to start? any suggestions??

CY6 - Germans 6 O'Clock!!

2011-12-14T10:00:00.005Z

As my gaming diary tends to be quite "busy" I normally plan games a couple of months in advance so that I can keep various systems on the rotation so that stuff doesn't become stagnant,

This was one that I was looking forward to....

It was time to Check your 6 and go for some bloody spiffing dog fighting!

So the Germans dropped outta the clouds and bumped the RAF, with an Ace down and the other with engine damage the RAF started to fight back, the usual chaos ensured and the funniest part of the game for me was a 109 trying to climb the pilot failing his check and the plane fell through the dog fight zone missing another 109 but clipping a spitfire on the way down, THEN a lucky shot caused another spitfire to spin out of control and poor Barnaby wasn't able to recover and hit the drink!

Nick was rolling quite aggressively and my robustness rolls were pants and 109's were dropping outta the sky at an alarming rate!

The RAF then decided to try and down the ace as he was on a roll with the shooting and and it ended up as...

we were pretty much level pegging plane for plane,but as time wasn't on our side we called it at turn six and I managed to win by about 2 points!!

So two games on the trot and I'd managed to win both! whats going on!!

and if your into your music get your lugs round this...

Tropic Lighting or "Why hello Mr G.I."

2011-12-10T22:34:00.000Z

Its been a long time coming...

The Mighty PAVN up against Coop's armour-tastic US tank company...

So as I've not played FOW for ages! I was rapidly reading the special rules for the PAVN and trying to suss out how to crack front armour 11 tanks with an infantry heavy force!....

So the Mission was Contact, Contact!

I had 1 unit that I could set up in ambush and get a round of shooting before Coops rumbled on with his tanks, and as I would be shooting at his side armour I went for the heavy recoiled anti-tank platoon, and managed to pop one of his patton's and bail the other, so not bad really, then the ACAV came in and put that lot into a early bath!

Coops was on delayed reserves and I could start rolling straight away and managed to get 1 platoon on turn two and the unwashed masses turned up, was lucky enough to roll in the quarter that had the US objective....

the "Anton" view

and the "cool" view...

so after some quite savage RPG shooting and sneaking medium recoiled anti-tank shooting the ACAV's are toasted and its just the Patton squaring up against an awful lot of infantry (at this point I felt bad for coops as none of his reserves had turned up)

Thousands of em sir!

And finally Coops managed to get a unit on....

only one cobra... how much hassle could that be??

it starts with a rocket pod attack but my saving throws were lucky but they were pinned...

so after alot of chin scratching I decided to do the sportsman thing and get the grenades out and claim the objective...

but not before booby trapping the tank... LOL

the Cobra then sat next to the Patton and between them they managed to repel 4 separate assaults pinning the assaulting units and holding them off!!!

the amount of shots coming from the patton and the Cobra as supporting fire was outstanding!!! I need to do aircav army.

so the platoon with the B41's all took a side step to the right and shot at the Patton in the side and managed to bail it, and then it simply came down to the wire with coops NEEDING to get back in his tank as the rest of his force was finally rolling up the table ready to kick my ass!

And he failed his roll, the PAVN were victorious!!

Armourfast review - Stug's & Panthers

2011-12-05T19:00:00.000Z

So with some infantry & Panzer's I decided it was time to bulk out the armour, and with the list that I'm going to be running I needed StuG's so after some mooching about I ordered some bits from Armourfast and they live up to there name and they arrived fast!

So first up would be the Stug III

nice looking box art

simple looking sprue

you get two in each box.

close up with a plastic solider company infantryman for scale factor, Price wise these are a steal £7.50 for 2 so clocking in at £3.75 a piece,

The models are crisp casting wise and quite simple to put together, the only down side for me was the tracks there are all one unit and the bottom of the hull has a raised bit to stick the tracks onto and there a bit of a bugger to suss out if your not knowledgeable with historical armour, but that's here the box art did help!

The other niggle I had was the back of the tank, the engine deck? hangs over the end and you stick the muffler on the back and that's it... just looks a tad naff, but as a wargaming model its not a problem.

So onto the StuH 42

in a nutshell the same kit as the Stug III but with a different barrel and that's it! now I think armourfast are missing a trick here that they could have designed the sprue to have both types of barrel and you'd have a versatile kit that if you modelled it right could be altered between the two.

And the final kit....

The Panther

again nice box art, and I referred to this whilst sticking the mantel together to make sure I didn't get it upside down,

and the size comparison next to an infantryman, and these are bloody big! now the tracks on there are much better designed so weren't a problem and these were dead easy to bang together! ok so you don't get the zimmerit coating but that's not a big problem personally,

so 8 tanks including delivery for £32.24 you can't complain when you could get modeller tanks for about £7 - £10 a piece, personally I think the plastic solider company ones a little better only because of the crewmen that you get and that I've used on the armourfast ones to make them look a bit different,

the ones without the sideskirts I'm gonna stick twigs on the side so that they look like...

and there you go, more amour than you can shake a stick at, all I'm waiting for is the final parcel from SHQ miniatures and I'll the start of a decent force.

So with all this German armour I'm currently looking into airbushes and working out if it'd be worth the cost....

Plastic Soldier Company Review 20mm Infantry & Panzer IV

2011-12-01T10:00:00.067Z

With myself picking up Kampfgruppe Normandy I did some digging about and with some excellent advice from the guys over on The Miniature Pages I've picked myself up some 20mm WW2 bits,

First up is the infantry, I was a bit dubious to be honest with this lot when going to pick them up as I remembered as a kid the green army men you can get and I thought it might be along the lines of that...

but that was soon blown out of the water as the smart people over at PSC have put a clear window on the back of the box so you can see what they look like, and 57 models for 11 quid its a no brainer!

So the actual sprues...

you get three sprues all the same, and quality wise I'm really impressed the models are crisp with no flash and just a quick clip em out and your good to go, Some need sticking together but compared to 28mm stuff its a doddle! and you also get spare heads in there if you fancy being well fancy!

Mount them as you like, I've gone for 20mm bases that cost a penny each ;) I can do an entire infantry platoon with one box, that's three squads, platoon HQ and three mg34 teams, the only thing that I need to get hold of is panzerfausts and I've ordered those from SHQ along with some other bits and bobs, so when they turn up I'll put those under the spotlight and see how they compare to the PSC guys.

So on to the "good" stuff... the armour!

Now everyone loves tanks if you don't well why bother gaming!! so the PSC Panzer IV box...

no plastic window on this one, but 3 models for a mighty £12 the words Ding Dong spring to mind, 4 quid a tank that's about the same cost as a pint in some pubs!

So each panzer comes on two sprues....

and again the sprues are crisp with only a little flash around the skirts that go on the hull.

now I thought this was quite clever, must be the same chap who thought of the clear window! the parts are colour coded so depending on what version of the panzer your after you slap those bits on.

So onto the models..

dead easy to put together,

I did one as a reference, and then faffed about with the skirts on the other two for a more "in the field" look.

close up of the running gear and over all detail.

So over all I'm quite impressed with the quality of the Plastic Soldier Company stuff, the only downer is that this is all they do for the Germans in 20mm, there is alot more in 15mm so aiming for the FOW market, I might have to pick up some 15mm stuff as its 16ish quid for 5 tanks, again a real bargain!

November update....

2011-11-29T22:58:00.000Z

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

2011-11-25T00:52:00.000Z

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....

2011-11-16T21:30:00.000Z

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

2011-11-05T23:18:00.000Z

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!

2011-11-01T21:23:00.000Z

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!

Release the crazies!!

2011-10-18T22:55:00.000+01:00

So....

what a weird month its been, I've actually ran out of paint for the terrain that I've been doing so it was a trip to the shop this evening to pick up some more but I'm starting to replace my normal GW paints with Vallejo paints as they are alot cheaper and after chit-chatting to Dave from the Burton club its the same stuff that I used to paint with back in the day!

Throw the leaked pictures of the necrons into the mix, and that Dreadfleet is STILL available to buy, when Space Hulk had sold out in the equivalent time previously it doesn't bode well, my local gaming store has a huge pile of them! But I've no doubt that the necrons will sell as good as the dark eldar, and I've still got my old school ones kicking around that I'll get some pics taken of at some point.

the other werid thing is that I've actually made a differance to the "hobby" by backing a project by dreamforge games, remember....

Well I spotted a post on his blog and decided to take the plunge and pledge some money in exchange for a "reward" if the project ever hit it target, and its managed to hit the target well ahead of the target date so I'm now quite excited to see the project pick up speed and get my reward in my hands.

If you wanna take part its open for the next 25 days:

www.kickstarter.com project-eisenkern-32mm-miniatures

So with the board on hold I picked up a couple of 1/48 kits to use as scatter type terrain and keep with the rocket base theme, the first one is a cool looking VW beetle, I knew that the Germans had something to do with this but after a bit of online reading I was surprised to find out that they did a part-payment scheme for normal people to buy one!

I was tempted to make it a wreck but it looks so cool!

the other kit that I picked up was a refueling truck (blogger is faffing me about with the pics!)

So some detail of the sprues, I've not touched a "proper" model kit for years and this bought back floods of memories!

so once I've got that banged together which shouldn't be too long I've got Coops to airbrush the main bodies of the models all I'll have to do is the additional bits,

So with the additional Celts that I picked up from the Derby show I figured that I might as well crack on with them to try and make an impact on the "pledge" for this month so in the "usual" Anton manner I stuck all 120 of them together and went on a spray-a-thon I wanted to use all the British bits to make a semi-naked unit that could act as champions/berzerkers and after a couple of nights work I'd managed to get them to the point of finishing off the bases and ready for the anti-shine,

Close up of the crazies...

and whilst that lot is waiting for some basing action, I decided to crack on with another unit of normal guys...

all I need to do with these is the copper bits on the armour and the odd tattoo on the half naked chaps and they'll be ready for the dip, its quite scarey how fast you can paint models with that stuff, 64 models in a week and a half? not bad!

and once the celts are done the saga vikings are ready to rock, I might dip these as well just to save time.

So with about 2 weeks before the end of the month I need to step up the pace to break even..

In a nutshell I need to do 138 Celts and finish the terrain to break even! IF I manage this which would be truly mental it'll push me over 1000 models painted this year! Which is double what I painted last year!

So stay tuned.... Can I achieve this mental goal, right I'm off to paint!!

Secrets of the third reich.... making the club gaming board part 3

2011-10-12T14:31:00.000+01:00

So after a bit of a slow start I've got my terrain making head on and got the following lot done,

so the actual ramp, 3 V1's, the concrete walls and the tank traps,

nice and simple nothing too fancy,

just some flock to put on the bases, and these are done

the concrete walls, again nothing too hard lots of dry brushing, I didn't bother doing the metal on the corners as that would make it look to sci-fi

and the launch ramp, I didn't want to go OTT with the flock but I'm tempted to put some more on in a different shade, and maybe a small tree, but from a wargaming proof angle that'll last about 2 sessions!

So the next lot, three lots of ruins, and a reinforced bunker, I'll put some of the plastic pallets on the ruins once there dry, which might be a while with the amount of no more nails and PVA that's on this lot!

so just some close ups, should be enough room for infantry to stand in,

and one of the two hangers that are going to be on the board, I've decided to leave them open so that units can hide in there ready for an ambush

So once that lots done, which shouldn't take too long as again it'll be dry brush central, I'll have a finial batch of terrain and that'll finish off the board nicely!

Secrets of the third reich.... making the club gaming board part 2

2011-10-07T22:50:00.000+01:00

So as normal I've gone straight into hardcore scenery making mode, something that I've not done for a long time, maybe it was the casting of the hurst arts molds that sent me over the edge??

Well so far this is what I've managed to do...

So a aerial view of the board, the green mat is just so that I can see what space the bits will fill, a few bits of scatter cover terrain and its about there,

I mulled over how to base the tank traps and figured a nice foot print would be needed so that it really slowed them down gaming wise and from a modelling perspective it would be easy to paint up and still look cool,

The V1 Prep/launch area, the walls are for a sci-fi range but look perfect for this,

and the actual ramp, taking a fair old bit of the board up and blocking a huge amount of line of sight this will dominate the board but give neither side the edge as you can't get models on it unless you run up the ramp!

one of the two "ok" casted V1's in transport mode

a very rough mock-up of a hanger, I'd gone for a "modern" day feel with the sloped concrete sides, but I've a bit of tweaking to do with the construction, I'm in two minds about the roof, a simple piece of wood/plastic card with some filler or just leave it open?

one of the generic ruins, after all the RAF would be having a pop now and then,

and the V2 that I've already done, with some blast walls around it, I'm struggling to find a transport rig for this, so I might on have this ready to launch,

I've still some other bits to do, I've another two MDF boards cut out for two more hangers but not too sure on that maybe one more would do it? A fuel silo of some description and some more ruins/rubble for difficult ground,

do you think its enough? or should there be more??

Secrets of the third reich.... Derby GT & show review

2011-10-03T01:08:00.000+01:00

So the GT has come and gone and the initial 59 day run up to the event has been well... eventful!!

So I managed to....

Learn the rules & teach half a dozen people at the same time how to play!

Spencer, Stef, Ross & Daz all picking up armies for SOTR just from watching me bumble my way through the rules!

Sorting out & painting my army to a fairly reasonable standard, chopped and changed it various times so that I ended up painting all of my British!

Meeting a nice bunch of chaps from Portal Wargaming namely Dave, Ian & a mental chap called Amos and looking forward to the SOTR campaign that starts in November.

Meeting Phil who kept me company on the drive back and forth to Derby and he ended up finishing 3rd, Pretty damm good for some one who only really saw me running Darrell through a game around 3/4 weeks ago!

Doing fairly reasonable at the GT with 8th place out of 12 scoring 50 points with two wins, two losses and one draw, but the real moment of pride for me was picking up the baton of honor (even though I didn't hear my name being called out until everyone looked at me!)

The Baton was based on army design, over all painting of the army, sportsmanship and attitude over the weekend, and a couple of the judges seemed to like the objective markers and the extra effort that I'd made for the alien tech mission.

So well chuffed with this, I'll put it along side the sportsman award from the 2010 warmachine GT.

The tables that the MDK boys had bought down from sunny Manchester where superb..

Florence South

Florence North

Kursk

Bastogne

Paris

Cairo

I didn't get a chance to take any snaps of the actual armies as I was too interesting in food on the Saturday and Mr Upton swung by to pay me a visit on the Sunday so we were whaffing shite as always!

A couple of guys were taking pictures so when they go up on the SOTR forum I'll put a link over, Overall the GT was very well ran and a very friendly atmosphere was present though out there was some quite tense moments but nothing that actually spoilt the weekend (unlike the warmachine one)

I also got to meet Wendy & Andy from westwind and as people go these pair were genuinely really nice people! (unlike some of the miserable fuckers that I've meet on my travels!) We went for a meal on the Saturday night which was arranged by Wendy and that was the cherry on the cake for me as I got to chat to other people I hadn't actually played against and talked about the gaming industry as a whole & parenting tips! and some the usual drinking stories that I come out with...

Army list wise I was quite happy with how it performed overall, and a few school boy errors did hinder my chances but I'd slipped into "40K" mode and forgot about cover and only seeing 2" through it or about the alternative actions and leaving paddy and his boys exposed to a counter charge from wolf runners that spanked there naughty MI-13 bottoms!

I'm going to make a big effort to go next year and see if I can bring some of the "Cats" to represent.

So the actual show its self...

First time I'd been to Derby and the venue was pretty good lots of natural light in the trader areas which was a welcome change from others that I've been to, vendor wise it was more historical rather than sci-fi but that wasn't a huge issue for me personally, we'd managed to get in early on both days so on the Sunday I snapped this little lot..

Celts up against Romans

same table different view

operation squad

other side

no idea but the terrain was superb!

hand built church!

cool looking town square with the horses around the "thingy"

some more of the same table

Ansty stall, up and coming pirate ships, the man-o-war was about £70 which wasn't bad personally!

close up of the sloop?

the man-o-war

no idea.

still no idea

10mm ww2 desert

some of the traders

some more

more upstairs!

and even more!!

ACW 6mm

insane painting on this lot!

no idea?

still no idea??

lots of hidden deployment ;)

these guys like the square formations!

err... pass?

and Phil smirking inside as some chap tries to sell him what can only be described as the worst cast buildings I've ever seen!

so I'd done quite well on the Saturday only picking up a copy of Saga from gripping beast even though they didn't have my pre-order sorted so they made one up whilst I was playing my second game and boo-hiss I'm missing a blister with 8 chaps in.

But on the Sunday my wallet was well and truly opened and I did go a little OTT at Total System Scenic and picked up loads of bits for the V1 / V2 launch site board, and after a little messing around with what I got its gonna look pretty cool... But I'll show you pictures another time.

I also managed to pick up a couple of V1's that are in transport mode, but after a but of a closer inspection its a copy of the plastic one that I picked up the other week so size wise spot one, casting quality is "ok"

and then Phil wanted to look at the bring and buy, now normally I don't see anything that I like the look of/need and to be honest most of it is utter tosh! but I managed to spot a potential deal but was being bocked out by two little girls looking at the "pretty" horses! after some evil whispering from Mr Upton saying I needed more so that I could field at least 3 divisions for hail Cesar and in the end I succumbed to his whispers and a nice chap passed me the bits that I was looking at and I picked up 2 boxes of Celt cavalry, 2 boxes of Celt warriors and 2 boxes of ancient British all made by warlord for a bargain price of £47! so it worked out buy one get one free!

so with the Pledge being reset for October and I was quite determined NOT to buy any thing apart from Saga its all gone tits up with the Celts (again) so I've a whopping 165 models to get though.

So I'll continue to work on the club board and once that's done I'll then make an effort to get the Celts started, they'll be getting the dip treatment, the Vikings for Saga will be the "normal" Anton painting, and that means the plague reaper will be put on the back burner.

So watch this space for the SOTR board and some hardcore production line Celt assembly/painting/dipping!

Secrets of the third reich.... making the club gaming board

2011-09-29T20:36:00.000+01:00

So with the GT only a day away and all the stuff painted for my force, I've played plenty of warm up games to get my head round the rules and lost most of them so I'm going to go in with the usual "Anton" attitude and have a good two days of gaming regardless of the results,

I'm hoping to actually learn some stuff and hopefully get some inspiration for a future force.

Now to keep me off the malestrom website and Ebay, I've started making a start on the themed board for the Phat cats,

So far I've picked up the following for the board:

1/35 V2 rocket
1/48 V1 rocket
1 sheet of 50mm underfloor installation foam (I'll see how it compares to the blue foam I used to use)
1 sheet of 3mm MDF for mounting scatter terrain
3 lengths of doweling
1 Bread knife (I don't think the other half would entertain me using the kitchen one!)

So the V1 that I picked up with a winterguard so you can see the size, I was surprised by the size, and the kit went together no worries!

so I decided to dust off the hurst arts molds and do some casting for the buildings for the table, I figured it would be cheaper that way so I can spend money on 1/48 kits to litter the table.

Now the only problem with this is I've not done any casting for about 6 years so if you've never seen this stuff before or wondered what you can do with it I've put together a quick casting guide.

I took over the kitchen for my casting marathon but made sure that the washing up was done before hand so that I gained some browny points ;)

I use a heavy duty bin liner so that the over spill is contained and set out the moulds that I wanted to cast, I use a old plastic cider bottle thats been cut so only the bottom bit is used, an old plastic water bottle again cut in half to measure out the water, a wallpaper scraper, and a lollypop stick to mix the plaster and water together.

So onto the mix, I use about 150 ml of water and added enough plaster till it look like the following pic, it was 4/5 table spoons heaped

So onto the first pour...

the trick I've learned over the years and didn't forget was to pour the mix onto the raised part of the mold rather than into the actual cast areas this way you don't trap alot of air and the way that the mix flows over the mold you can control it better.

I managed to get just over 2 moulds with the first mix, notice the lumps on the semi-done mold this is where the plaster and water wasn't quite mixed together right but its no problem, I quickly made a second and did a second pour.

So after 10 to 15 mins I then scrape the molds, now I don't press down on the mold I just let the weight of the wallpaper scraper do the work, and once thats done I left it for about an hour

some of the pieces that I got out of the first lot

and after a bit of a hardcore casting session I managed to get this lot done in about 8 hours, the top tray is what I did in about 6 hours and the bottom one was in an evening so about 2 hours

So once you have a routine going you can pump out quite a bit, its just important to remember that you don't leave the scrape too long otherwise you'll have uneven bricks and don't go mental with the casting!

All I've gotta do is wait for them to dry and with the sun its not gonna take long at all, in the mean time I'll start working on the V1 launch ramp, but more of that for another post.

so for more info on the hurst arts stuff and have a look at his website,

www.hirstarts.com

the design derby is worth having a look at some superb buildings on there,

Here comes the chaos..... back from the dead!!

2011-09-26T18:01:00.000+01:00

So after a week of doing various "family" stuff with the other half being off work and the Golden Child's first birthday to plan and sort out, I've not really done that much painting this week,

but what I have managed to get done I'm quite happy with, I've managed some leaders for the up and coming warhammer chaos army starting with the lord....

I found this bad boy kicking around in one of my bits boxes and figured I might as well use him as my lord, turns out that this is a limited edition gamesday miniature and after being told this found him on ebay for about £40!

I've angled him up so that you can actually see the front rather than a shadow,

the view that I'll see the most of, I'm quite happy with the red of the cape but I did have quite alot of practice with the sann hann!

The "newish" plastic chaos scorcer painted up to please Kurt... (the first game I used him he kicked ass!)

As always I've been keeping my finger on the geek pulse and spotted this cracking bit of kit on Ebay and ended up paying less for it than I would if I bought a baneblade brand new!!

In the traditional "Anton" fashion no sooner had I unpacked it I'd already applied the initial coat and done a heavy dry brush....

then I started to ponder at it looking at the cannon and thinking that it could be better, so out came the pliers and off came the cannon to be replaced with one that I picked up a while back from the states, that same evening Coop's saw the about picture and felt that it wasn't "spikey & Chaosy" enough now I'm not a massive fan of the spikey chaos but I agreed on the chaosy factor there was some elements in there but not enough for grand father nurgle to give it his blessing!

So some random bits and green stuff later I ended up with...

I'll continue to take snaps at each stage but it's going to be my "reward" project so that I can take my time on it and not just pump it out, but I'll only count it as one model towards my "pledge"

Whilst I was down the club on Thursday I wandered into the kitchen were we tend to mooch whilst the ninja's finish beating the crap out of each other and seen Coach & Sonny playing warmachine on the table and the best use of a paper plate as a damage grid for his jacks!

As a bit of a break from all of the SOTR that I've been playing recently I got a text from Nick saying that he was starting a Cutlass campaign and did I want in... stupid question really ;)

So after convincing Coops to play Cutlass rather than flames it was me and Cooper against Nick's Superhard crew and we was after his loot!

After some very un-orky sneaking through the trees I decided to go for it and paid the price with most of my gang getting the be-jesus kicked out of them in combat and the Orc captain losing his had to a serious injury...

But even with his hand lost Captain (insert name here) will be back to lead his crew to victory!

I've not really made much of a start to the secrets of the third reich themed board, but I picked up aload of these pallets so can make some real cool scatter terrain,

So the doomsday clock is no longer an issue as I've managed to get all my bits done well in time and as for the pledge thats well under control for this month!

Bought - 17

Painted - 49
Difference + 29

I'm going to pick up yet another system at Derby at the weekend in the form of Saga from gripping beast, basicly 28mm vikings on the rampage.. carn't wait!! and more than likely some MERC's stuff as well.