Phat Cats on tour - Crisis Part 3 & the pledge

Well it was the day after the show and rather than get straight back to old blighty we decided to take a slight diversion and wander over to Waterloo, Rob was very excited about this as he's into all that kinda stuff!

To be completely honest I wasn't too fussed about Waterloo but thought why the hell not! 
 

So we arrived with plenty of time to spare before we neeed to get the ferry back to the UK, It was really good to have Rob with us as he was explaining loads of stuff as we were walking around so he became my personal tour guide!

The amount of information and the quality of the uniforms and the display was fantastic, enough of the whaffing have a look at the pictures and if any of you history buffs want to lift these pictures for painting guides help yourself! 

One thing that I did find interesting was the political art, not much has changed in the way these days! 

So after wandering around the museum it was time to climb the Lions mount, now I;m not the fittest chap in the world anymore but in the true Anton fashion I though well it can't be that bad.....

by the time I got to the top I was blowing out of my arse! but what a view! 

So we set back off towards the good old UK and it appears that all the excitement of Waterloo and Rob's kickstarter finishing on the Sunday evening was too much for him to bear! 

However being the good co-pilot that I am me and Lee whaffled for hours about loads of random stuff! 

So we got off the beach and got what has become the traditional lunch on the ferry. 

and we're still going strong, with a bit of additional help from starbucks and some very strong coffee!

So after some epic driving from Mr Upton I got home in one piece and unloaded a ton of stuff from the weekend!

And in the traditional post show review this was my loot for the weekend, I'd been asked by a few different people if I was going for anything in particular and to be honest I wasn't after anything really and that was a dangerous mindset to go to a show with as you can see from the pic!

I've a bit of work to catch up on with regards to posts of stuff that I've got painted over the last month so you'll see a flurry of updates with regards to what I've been getting upto!

So onto the Pledge,


November, and the year has flew by and I'm already thinking about my end of year reflection and its gonna be a big one!

Bought - 32
Painted - 102
Difference + 70

another stonking month and it helped that the warzone and AVP stuff was all freebies thanks to the demo credit that I've earned over the last year.

Looking at my excel document and seeing where I'm standing with the previous years I'm close to topping last years total painted and reasonably close to hitting 1000 models for this year.

So its time to step up a gear and sort out some bits that I've been meaning to get sorted out for a while, for me to hit the 1k I "need" to paint up 101 models for the month of December now on paper this is doable however with the month of December being when Santa rocks up I'll be getting involved in family events and trying to find some stuff for close friends and family!

No I'm not going to say what I would like to get painted this month as that normally goes out the window as I chop and change like the wind depending on what takes my fancy and whats on the painting table!

Getting my geek on - Black powder & Beyond the gates of Antares

Well its been a action packed week in the land of the Anton!

Last Sunday Ed whom is buggering off to the mighty RAF asked a few guys if they fancied a game of black powder.

I thought it'd be rude not to and so we got a few models out and shoved them around the table for a few hours....

Ed looking quite chuffed with the whole lot on the table, 

the mighty French painted by myself a fair few years ago! 

More cav than you can shake a stick at! 

The British lines, The highlanders would prove to be a pain in the arse later on! 

The whole lot

A fair bit of French! 

So after a dodgy start where the right flank stood around eating garlic and the British sat around making tea, we eventually started passing command checks and moved stuff about! 

the French hit the British lines like a steam train and the British held for most of the day and after a series of dodgy rolls the French lost unit hand over fist and we called it a British victory.

Overall the day was excellent and most of the models were Ed's that he's spent the last 4 years painting and I have to give in a big thumbs up for managing to stay focused on this for such a long time, I'm luck if I stay focused on the same system for more than 8 months as I'm a gaming whore!

Also A big thanks to Dave over at Black Dragon miniatures who put up with us for the whole of the day! 

The game has certainly sparked my interest in black powder which has surprised me to be honest and myself and my fellow madman Mr Smith have made a gentleman's agreement to pick up some 10mm Napoleonic and give it a crack as we both feel that 28mm is too big for a normal sized table.

So keep your eye out for that slow grow project that I'll be doing over the next couple of months.

So not content with a 5 hour session on Sunday, I'd arranged a beta game for Antares,

Previously way back in April/May 2014 myself and Nick played a fair few games of the alpha rules and providing feedback to Rick with regards to his system.

Since then I'd not really looked at the system as I'd been distracted with various other projects and real life. So I was really looking forward to this and been asked to bring the colourful jungle along.

As one of the guys from the Loughbrough dice devils wanted in on the action I did the gentlemanly thing and gave him the choice of army and I ended up with the Bromites normally the guys who I'd end up facing! 

One of the squads going for the objective! However they failed the command roll and mooch around for a couple of turns due to being pinned

however these guys came on like a steam train and were on one! 

 

  overall view of the table after turn one,

more reinforcements come flooding on

the rock dogs and the pack leader decide to go for it and start attracting the fire from the guys opposite

Missing a few guys but still going for it!

part way though turn 4,
 

the rock dogs are still in the game, god knows how as the were reacting by doing down due to the amount of fire pouring in at them, and didn't break!

You'll notice though that the golden droid has been snatched by the Algoryn's

and I didn't quite get the one that I was aiming for....

so a victory to the Algoryn's in this case.

It was an interesting game as it felt alot more complete than the previous alpha rules and it was nice to see the suggestions that Nick had put forward actually in the game, at the moment it is available for free download off the warlord site,

free-antares-public-beta-pdf-download

additional missions and a cheat sheet have also been uploaded,

rules-scenarios-for-beyond-the-gates-of-antares

so if your sitting on the fence with this one give it a crack you've nothing to lose, I'm certainly looking for my Sci-Fi fix after not really feeling the love for 40K 8th Ed and I think this along with Warzone will be my go to system.