If you go down to the woods today...

...you're in for a tiger-y surprise!

Finished off this fine beast this week, as a break from assembling Salute purchases. Given the next Pulp adventure is in India, what could be better (well, worse) than meeting a tiger?!

Miniature is from North Star, I don't know the manufacturer. The sculpt is actually a leopard but I loved the stalking pose. I just added some green stuff around the face to make his features more tiger-like.

Stalking his unsuspecting prey through the long grass...

Pulp Adventures AAR: Where in the World are we?!

A big gaming weekend for me, not only did we have Salute, later that evening my brother and I managed two short Pulp games, a continuation of our recent adventure.

We left our adventurers having failed to identify their current nemesis and return the missing artefacts. So, our old friend the Director of Antiquities had a new errand for the party - which happened to be in rural India, jewel in the Empire's crown! The Professor readily agreed, having spent some of his earlier years of military service there he was keen to investigate this most mysterious of countries further.

After pausing in Egypt to refuel, the plan had engine difficulties from the scorching heat over Arabia, leading to a less than comfortable landing. Lost, battered and carrying limited supplies, to make matters worse a vicious sandstorm looked to be closing in!

Our adventurers regain their senses around their wrecked plane.

After much searching, the Professor finds our heroes' weapons, as some unfriendly-looking locals close in...

Sdn Ldr Michaels spots something sticking out of the sands and rushes to investigate. Felling one local with his gun, he hauls what turns out to be their badly wounded pilot towards safety. But the sandstorm is now closing in fast - will they make it in time?

As winds rage and the vicious sandstorm swirls, the Professor and Mr Singh desperately flee for the cover of what looks to be a cave. Michaels and the wounded pilot are too far behind to make it - lets hope they were able to find some shelter and fend for themselves...

This first game was great, short and snappy, with a few objectives and a little impending doom before our heroes' narrow (and partial!) escape. The green gems were our encounters, containing kit that had survived the crash and other events. The sandstorm moved to cover an extra D10 + turn number of square inches each turn. We were wrapped in under an hour.

I should close with a huge thanks to my brother for the terrain - impressive work to scratch-build this in six weeks while doing father duties for his 3-month old! The 2' x 2' mat is a new purchase from Zuzzy in the US, and lovely it painted up too.

Part two to come soon!

Salute 2012: The Haul

In the aftermath of Salute plenty people are blogging about their day and purchases. And here's my trifling haul. From the top:
-Two Battlefront plastic tanks (free with a demo at FoW, since passed to someone who plays 15mm WWII who can make use of them)
-A bumper set of Colours from Flag Dude. Enough for all my finished Napoleonic Brits and Spanish.
-Free samples from GZG. Fantastic 15mm SciFi sculpts, I was chuffed that one a great likeness to Mal Reynolds from Firefly.
-Movement trays for Saga from Warbases
-A part-box of Wargames Factory Greek Hoplites, for my Brother's next project (more on that later)
-A small preorder from Pendraken, giving me enough WWII British to play Blitzkrieg Commander
-Salute 2012 miniature, which looks fun to paint up
-Stock up on MiniNatur tufts
-Redoubt miniatures Helen of Troy and Trojan archers (Brother's project)
-A lonely pack of Perry Napoleonics
-Otherworld Miniatures Minotaur (can you guess the project?)

Not a completely successful day, not only did I return home with fully half my spends, I was desperate for new matt varnish and white undercoat but could only find Army Painter and GW sprays which I'm avoiding. I was interested in a new big battle, small-scale project and didn't pick anything up, though most tempting was some 15mm SciFi from GZG. I'll paint up my samples and look into buying online.

Salute was a great day, a massive show and busier than I've ever seen it. So big it took two hours to do our first circuit of the hall! I don't feel like I managed to do the show justice, as the clock ran down it became a spend-athon and I didn't pay enough attention to the frankly amazing demo tables. I did take my camera but spectacularly failed to take any photos. So I'm reliving the through other people's great snaps, like Samulus and BigLee.

I also failed to get to the bloggers meet-up, my fault entirely as I got my timings wrong. I didn't start well in this regard, being half an hour late on arrival which put me in a flustered mood. So apologies to those Bloggers I missed wandering around the hall, I hope you all had a good day and hope to catch you at another show soon!

Those who are about to buy... Salute you!

Shortly I'll be making my way across London to join many of you at Salute 2012. As the biggest UK show it is always great to get down there to spend some pennies! Looking forward to a day dedicated to the hobby and hope to catch some of my fellow bloggers there.

Rise of the Thuggee

It is time to game some Pulp adventures in India - you may assume (correctly) that I've been watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Setting it in India opens up a wealth of possibilities: Elephants! Secret Cults! Sacred treasure! Tigers! What more could an adventuring archaeologist ask for? 

I needed to finish these Pulp Figures Thuggee Stranglers last night as they are a birthday gift for my brother. He insisted I match the colour scheme from Indy, demanding bugger ;-) Ok, the clothing is totally different but I think they came out pretty well. I'm particularly pleased with my matching the red swishes on the turbans. Lovely clean castings as always from Pulp Figures.

I regret not getting the Thuggee with Martini Rifles too. Ah well, something to order next time. 

For the historically inclined among you, a short explanation of the Thuggee (thanks Wikipedia):

Thuggee (also known as tuggee or simply thugs) was a religious cult and an organized gang of professional assassins who traveled in groups across India for several hundred years. They were first mentioned in the Ẓiyāʾ-ud-Dīn Baranī (English: History of Fīrūz Shāh) dated around 1356. In the 1830s they were targeted by William Bentinck, along with his chief captain William Henry Sleeman, for eradication. They were seemingly destroyed by this effort.

The Thuggee would join travellers and gain their confidence. This would allow them to then surprise and strangle them by tossing a handkerchief or noose around their necks. The killings were performed in honour of the goddess Kali and were very ritualistic. They would then rob the bodies of valuables and bury them.

And that is the etymology of the word 'thug'! In our 1930s Pulp storyline, our adventurers will discover the Thuggee on the rise after their so-called 'eradication'....

In a brief disinterest in everything else I had prepped, I turned my attention to this chap. He will be the muscle for the Societe Archaeologique, which I've started as a rival NPC group for Pulp games. He is a West Wind French Partizan - check out that beret and neckerchief combo!

All quiet on the Blogging front

Is it me or is it quiet around here? The Gaming Blogosphere seem to have been a bit quiet lately, but perhaps I'm just missing the regular Challenge updates of recent months. Or maybe the weather is perking up so we're all spending less time at our hobby tables and more getting some sunlight?

I received two packages this week, both from DaveD. First off a book he gave away on his blog: Hell Riders by Terry Brighton. I look forward to an illuminating read about the charge of the light brigade. Secondly some plastic round shields, after I asked for spares to equip my Vikings the other week. Many thanks to DaveD for sorting me out, Vikings without shields was a sad state of affairs.

So, here is a shout-out to DaveD of One Man and his Brushes, for being a thoroughly nice chap. Check out his blog here:
http://onemanhisbrushes.blogspot.com
Lots of eye-candy here, I particularly like how DaveD does his horses.

With Salute fast approaching I look forward to seeing some of you there.

Jasper and friends get a new lick of paint

None of the bits on my painting table appealed this afternoon, so I went back to some minis I had alreay finished but was never happy with. Not being a dog person, for speed and convenience I had painted these three mutts completely black. They were a bit too 'Hound of the Baskervilles' and didn't look natural, no way the sculpts could pass as black labradors!

I don't know what breed they are meant to be, but they are big mutts. Compare Jasper in the foreground with the Irish wolfhound in the centre of a recent Pulp game - first picture here. A bit of Wiki-ing suggested the sculpts could pass as English Mastiffs, a notably large breed. So the three were tweaked to roughly match the description on Wikipedia.

  The miniatures are from Rackham's Cadwollan range, bought just as Rackham imploded. I knew they would come in useful and Jasper has been a regular companion in our Pulp games, being his master's bravest defender.