Pict Close Ups

I’ve been  asked to show some close ups of some of the Picts, so I thought I would share them here too

Warlord

Boudi

Cavalry

Guides

Picts Finished

Finally got my Picts finished for the UKGM next week 😁 

The Deer in the background are the fatigue markers & the Skyclad Boudi mini is the masters of terrain marker

Pict Warband picture

Having a day off work £ the weather is nice, no hint of rain.

So I've Finally managed to get the Picts varnished with some Dulcote Mat Varnish

Now all i need to do is finish basing, fingers crossed i should get that done next week ready for the UK Grand Mellee, 

I would have liked to have had more practice with them though 😕

Pict Cavalry Finished

Managed to finish off the Pict cavalry.

 

They still need varnishing (if it ever stops raining!) then I can finish off the bases on these & the rest of the Warband ready for the Grand Melee in a few weeks.



It’s a Raid!

We played the It's a Raid Scenario from the 

2017 Grand Melee players pack at the Ripon City Wargamers.

                                          Turn1

Pete used his Vikings against my Picts.

Scenario has 6 tokens (loot markers) placed around the centre line of the table.

when your miniatures come into contact with a token the activation of the unit ends, from then on the unit can only move 'short' & cannot drop the token. Markers are only dropped by losing combat or by being destroyed.

The Winner is decided by having most loot markers at the end of Turn 6.

We ended up putting all the markers evenly spaced around the centre of the table.

 

                                          Turn 3

Pete Grabbed 2 Loot Markers early (we used my unfinished fatigue markers for these, which are some Red Deer from Wrbases) on & i managed to attack one of the units making them drop the token, but i couldn't consolidate the win to pick it up. Whilst my Hearthguard cavalry tried to uunsuccessfully turn a unit of warriors into pin cushions!

                                           Turn 5

After a lot of toing & froing with the central markers, My unit of 8 tooled up mounted Hearthguard bounced off Petes 4 man Hearthguard!!! 
Perhaps i need to get them finished to help them be of some use??
On the right hand side my unit of Warriors sat in some Terrain looking after a loot marker with Masters of the Terrain in play & survived been shot at by the Viking Thralls.  
In the end it came down to a draw with both sides capturing 3 markers each.
Another great Saga game. 

UK GRAND MELEE 2017

Well the official announcement for the 2017 Grand Melee has been made.

This year Derby(?) Worlds is at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground, Lutterworth. Leicestershire. LE17 5QS.

We already have our tickets & accommodation booked 👍

I'd best get my act together with the picts & get some games in as i've only ever used Vikings in one form or anoher!.

WARLORD FINISHED!

Well I've finally got the warlord finished.

I've just based him on a piece of bark & added a few bits of fine slate around the edges & a couple of grass tufts. 

Here's the rear view. I kept the shield design simple, as I thought that the tartan was busy enough.

Hope you all like it. 

Warlord update

Got a chance to do a bit more this morning. 

I've painted the leather work & iron metalwork, 

along with a basecoat for the woodwork on the shield & the the tooth necklace. 

Gripping Beast Warlord

I've started paint the Saga Grand Melee free Warlord miniature from gripping beast & I thought that I would share a WIP

He's a great little figure of a portly Scot/Pict not really sure what he's supposed to be, but I do like him. 

Obviously I didn't get to paint the jeep. I got some green on it and got fed up 🙄

U.K. Grand Melee 2016

Big Jim, Craig & myself arrived at Derby Worlds early on Saturday morning ready to compete in the UK Grand Melee & went to see Lord S. of Gripping Beast to register & receive our free figure & to find out where we would be starting. 

My first opponent was Karl with his Norse Gaels

This was The clash of Warlords scenario & a hard fought fun game, with Karl just managing to kill my Warlord & with a really close kill score.

 

Next up is Sam & his lovely Steppe Tribes. 

In round we played one of the special scenarios - Brewery wars, in this scenario the object was to get as many beer barrels from you opponents Brewery, needing at least 2 to win the game. It was fantastically fun game with Sam managing to get one in the first turn but My Warlord was having none of of it & promptly slaughtered the unit of Warriors & took it back.

After this neither of us managed to get near a brewery & the game ended in a draw.

For round 3 I was up against Andrew with his pesky Irish 

In this final round of the day it was the Champions of God Scenario from the C&C rulebook, which is basically kill everything, which Andrew promptly did!! With him completely wiping out my army! Another fabulous game to end a great first day. 

DAY TWO

Game no. 4 was against Dave & his fabulously themed & modelled Norse Gaels, my personal favourite army of the weekend  

I'm really annoyed that I didn't get some better pictures of Dave's army. His warlord is an awesome conversion & all of the army is themed round a bunch of Irish Vikings on the piss. One of them even has a dartboard for a shield.

The Scenario for this game was Sacred Ground (Escalation Version). This didn't quite go to plan for Dave, with me wiping out his entire army & much to our amusement a unit of warriors taking out his warlord & most of a unit of Hearthguard! 

This was my first win & spoiler alert - one & only win.  

 

Game 5 was against James with his Crescent & Cross Milites Christi 

This was another special scenario called Capture the Hoarde. This entailed a hoarde marker been on a piece of terrain in the centre of the table & the idea is to grab it & keep hold of it till turn 6.

This did not go well for me, my warlord dying very early in the game, the warriors performed well again though! Another brilliant game

The final game was against another James with his Byzantines

This was clash of warlords again. 

This did not go at all to plan!! Ending in turn 2, which I thought was hilarious! I decided my warlord would lead some Hearthguard and punch through the Byzantine Warriors straight into his warlord, but oh no they bounced of the warriors! & James charged in with his cav to take out the Hearthguard & followed by the Warriors to revenge their fallen comrade and kill my Warlord. 

 

All in all a fantastic weekend of gaming. 6 brilliant games. Andy did a fantastic job of running the weekend (even though he was very stressed at certain points) 

The Grand Melee was deservedly won by reigning champion Andy Lyon of Ainsty Castings

& The Judges Favourite Army (best painted) was a we'll deserved win by my mate Craig Green

I came way down the board, but I went expecting to loose all the games & had said I would be happy with a draw, so I was ecstatic having a win. 

IS ANYBODY STILL THERE?

Blimey I hadn't realised that it was May when I last posted!!

Well I've not really done much since then, Life seems to be getting in the way.

 

I had a fantastic time at the Grand Melee & managed to win best painted army, which was nice.

 

I've not painted much over the last few months apart from these Empire of the Dead Figures for Adam & a truck for my Home Guard which I will try to get a picture of.

 

 

Not the best picture as my 4yr old decided to break my lamp & I still haven't managed to replace it (I was probably due a new one as it was 20yrs old!!)

 

Cheers

 

Keith

 

Vikingr with Dane Axes

We've recently been playing Saga again 
& have signed up for the UK Grand Melee to be held at

 Firestorm Games in Cardiff on June 7th & 8th.

I thought that there would be more people going & it was touch & go for a while

whether it went ahead. but all is good & its happening so get signed up for it.

Anyway, I've never been truly happy with the Viking board,

so I thought that I would give the Jomsvikingr a go & I've really enjoyed

playing them. I like the challenge of getting the wrath built up

to get some really devastating abilities. I've found it fun to build the wrath up & make all these plans & been too dopey to realise, that when I use the abilities the wrath is decreasing all the time, so that when combat ensues there is only 1 or 2 wrath so I don't get all the attacks that I thought I would!!!

I needed some Dane axe armed Vikings & as look had it I had 5 Gripping beast figures & managed to cadge some more off Jim (who has a great new Blog) so I now have a unit of 6 Hirdmen (Jomsvikings) with Dane Axes.

Here's a picture, I'm not too sure about the one with Blond hair though,
I think he looks a bit too much like Richard Branson!!

Anyway hope you like them.
Cheers Keith