"We will fight them on the beaches of Dunwich, we will fight them on the landing grounds of Antarctica..."

I've mentioned before that I had been struggling to find some period (20s-30s) appropriate figures for my Strange Aeons games, so I finally (and I mean finally, this guy has been half done for YEARS) finished a figure I had picked up for playing Weird World Wars games.  I think this somewhat proper English gentleman could fill in well as the member or leader of a team of Threshold agents.

The real question for me now is do I own the title of 'Most British' war gaming miniature of all my friends or does Darren's model of The Trooper from Iron Maiden still trump me?

-Jay

He's a doctor, I'm sure he's here to help us...

I've started going back and adding to my small (very small) collection of "pulp" gaming figures.  I'm primarily using these figures for Strange Aeons but I'm not a fan of their miniature line so I've been trying to find pieces elsewhere for what I need.

My first addition is a doctor (not sure what he's a doctor of mind you) to add to my team of investigators.  The figure itself is actually from Black Scorpion's Old West range but I figured he was suitably generic looking to have worked his way forward into the 20s.

The doctor is from the same pack that Zoe's earlier "Miss Kitty" figure is from and I have to say if you're looking for a pack of townspeople for some different eras I would definitely recommend checking out the Black Scorpion line.

-Jay

No no no Fishy, I am the law!

What have I said in the past about me having hobby A.D.D.?  After spending some time trying to decide if my 28mm sci-fi focus this year will be on Warzone or 40K I've finally settled on Judge Dredd.....

When I decided to play Judge Dredd I ran up against a principle in war gaming that is in some circles referred to as "the Zulu problem".  The origin of the name is centered on the idea that tons of war gamers like to plan and play the Battle Of Rourke's Drift (as seen in the movie Zulu), the 'problem' part of the name is based on the idea that EVERYONE wants to play the British and no one wants to play the Zulus.  There are a ton of different forces you can play in Judge Dredd but EVERYONE wants to play the judges, how do we solve this problem?  The good folks at Mongoose and/or Warlord have thought ahead and built their own practical and thematically appropriate solution into the game.  Ladies and gentlemen please allow me to introduce Chief Judge Cal!

Judge Cal was the villain in a story line way back when where he rose to the position of Chief Judge, then promptly went insane (naming his fish Fishy Deputy Chief Judge just in-case you couldn't tell he was insane before) and brain-washed most of the Judges of Mega-City One into following his edicts.

By choosing to play a Judge Cal force I will be able to use most of the Judge figures I have already painted while talking in a voice like Hedonism-bot from Futurama while gaming.

Thankfully now that I've made that decision I can put away my Warzone and 40K figures for now......say, did the Imperial Knight just go up for pre-order?

-Jay

Best laid plans of mice and supermen

Awhile back I mentioned I had decided on playing the Goalsystem games, starting with Supersystem with my daughter Zoe.  We're still going ahead with that but I may have over thought things a bit.

Zoe is going to be painting up her own team of 3 new superheroines.  I decided I would paint 3 new superheroes/villains to play with at the same time, but as her interest has been erratic I've gotten a bit ahead of myself.

Zoe's first fig when she gets it done is a "brick" arch-type which is both a pretty cool looking figure and one of her best paint jobs so far.  At the same time she started painting 'Princess Power' I started painting a "brick" of my own.  Meet Mac Roman.

Mac has super-strength and toughness and will also be able to fly.  Basically he's going to be my all-around super dude.  Think The Captain from Nextwave and you've got the basic idea.

For this project we are both doing complete repaints of some B-list (and maybe D-list) Heroclix models.  So here's my question for all you superhero fans; what was my figure originally before his re-paint?  I used a little putty to fill in some details I didn't like but other than that he's straight off the base, no chopping and swapping.

-Jay

Thrullg (I swear that's not a typo)

Finished up one of my optional baddies for my Witchfire game today; the Thrullg.

The Thrullg is a really cool monster from the Iron Kingdoms setting, it's basically like the Rust Monster but it "eats" magic rather than metal.  I also like the figure because in a pinch I think it would be a good substitute for a generic Cthulhu monster if I ever needed one.

I also wanted to share an "ah ha" moment I had while prepping to do some photographs today.  When Wyrd first released their Terraclips scenery the one thing I didn't like about it is that there is a grid of one-inch squares printed on all the base pieces.  It was never an issue for Malifaux but if I was playing a game where sometimes guessing distance is an issue I wouldn't want it to be there, however now that I'm gearing up to run an RPG in a fantasy steam punk setting suddenly discovering I have a ready made set of floor tiles wasn't exactly a bad thing.

-Jay

Elves!

My much delayed Elves are finally done for Lord Of The Rings!

I still have a few more characters I want to add but I think I can now in good faith start looking at elf miniatures from The Hobbit.

My last dozen figures were basically a repeat of my first dozen figures, 12 of the basic plastic elf troop models that used to come 24 to a box.

At the start of my last game I was really lamenting the fact that I didn't have more Galahdrim Warriors (the armoured Wood Elves) and less of these guys but by the end of the game I really felt that the basic models were more bang for the buck point-wise.  The great thing about the Galahdrim is that they have a higher basic Defense stat and they can add shields on top of that to bolster it whereas the basic Wood Elves have a lowly Defense of 3 and are quite easy to take out once you hit them....once you hit them.  This is one of those things that I can never wrap my head around until I've actually played a game with models on the table.  Although I was well aware that my elven cloaks would protect my lightly armoured troops from shooting while they crossed the table I was sure that once they got into melee their Defense 3 would be their downfall.  What I forgot was that a low Defense in Lord Of The Rings is not that big a deal if you pair it with a high Fight value.  So basically my regular troops were immune to bow-fire and won two-thirds of their fights so their low Defense stat seldom became an issue.

If it hadn't taken me a year to get around to finishing these guys I think I'd be headed out the door to get another box!

-Jay