Eye Candy Prep And WIPs

As I continue to prep for the second chapter in the Jonny Quest campaign, I finished up some more possible plot points and background eye candy.

Here is a mill from Architects of War. These guys always made really neat little vignettes and I've bought several over the years at Historicon, I think I only have one left to complete with this one now finished. Unfortunately these aren't available anymore, as the company went out of business, which is a shame because they are fantastic models.

Another Spartan Games objective marker. Three left to complete the set.

This came out of one of the Old Glory pirate sets I mentioned in the last post. I thought it would be perfect for a pulp game. Who isn't always after buried treasure?

And some priming done. How cool is this piece from Ainsty Castings, the laser table from Goldfinger! It is here that our hero will try to bluff his way out of being cut in half by the laser by mentioning he knows all about the plans for 'Operation Inside The Park Home Run'*.  :)
*copyrighted IvorEvansInc.LLC* lol!!

I'll need to figure out something for the laser beam. Maybe an actual laser pointer somehow built into that back wall!!?? Hmmmm...

Some more Ainsty accessories; a safe, copy machine, and a couple of security check points.

I also began working through the last of my unbuilt 4Ground kits. This Detached House went together easily, except for the roof.

Holy smokes, what a complete nightmare! I've built a ton of 4Ground kits and never had as much of a problem with a roof as I did with this one.  It just didn't fit properly no matter how much I bent and twisted the pieces. I'm going to put shingles on it to help cover up the seams.

I've also completed two of the four damaged mid-terrace houses I have left to build.

All the buildings will get more details at a later date, the biggest thing now was to get them built.

Added flock, rocks, grass and palm trees to a Battlefield in a Box swamp to use as an oasis. I have the regular ponds, but thought I wouldn't go with the deep blue water version for a desert oasis.

But maybe I made the wrong decision? Let me know what you think.

Here are my two skimmers from Dave at Pulp Alley. Unfortunately the second set was missing their bases - I've emailed them about it so hopefully replacements are coming soon.

I'm going to raise the skimmers by adding pegs onto the bases. I think I'm going to use some of the pegs from my Wings of Glory airplanes. This will allow me to raise and lower the height of the skimmer as I need, because as you can see they are pretty low to the ground currently.

Kinda of disappointed that only one figure can be in the skimmer, would have been neat to get two in like in the Jonny Quest episode 'The Fraudulent Volcano'.

I've got pieces and parts coming for a chain link fence, which is really the only thing holding me up from completing chapter 2 of the Quest adventure. I'm sure that I could run the game now, but not having the truck locked up behind the chain link fence would be all I'd be focusing on the whole time, which in turn would make my head explode :)  So stay tuned for that build...

As always, thanks for looking!
Ivor

New Stuff And Old New Stuff

While I'm getting myself sorted and organizing the second chapter in the Jonny Quest campaign, I thought I would do a bit of an unboxing of my Blood and Plunder order that just arrived a few days ago.

I imagine that I'm no different from probably 90% of people who read the blog - we all have multiple era's that we game in, have an obscene amount of miniatures (more than likely unpainted!), stacks of different rules books, terrain, etc... you know what I'm talking about :)

The low ceiling makes it look much worse than it really is.

That was written in my sarcasm font.

Well, add another era for me. Perhaps not necessarily new, because when I was organizing some boxes last week I found a whole box with pirate figures in it - big surprise right?! In it I found 3 boxes of NorthStar's 'On The Seven Seas' pirate sets - Blackbeard looks absolutely amazing! -  Foundry's Treasure Island set and captains, along with a few Old Glory bags of captains, sea dogs, and a really neat buried treasure set.

Firelock Games have now released their new pirate game Blood and Plunder and I had to pick it up, mostly because they have ships!!! And besides, who doesn't like pirates?! I actually have the 'On The Seven Seas' ruleset by Osprey, but never got to play it. So even if I actually remembered everything I had bought in that box from above, I'm certain that wouldn't have detered me in the least bit to go in pretty big on B&P.

I picked up the starter sets for both the English Buccaneers and the Brethren of the Coast.
The English came with
12 Freebooters
4 Forlorn Hope
8 Sea Dogs
1 Buccaneer Commander
9 Game Cards
1 Sloop
1 English Activation Card Deck

And the Brethren

8 Boucaniers

8 Freebooters

4 Forlorn Hope

4 Marineros

1 English Buccaneer Commander

9 game cards

1 Sloop

1 Unaligned Activation Card Deck

I also grabbed the rule book, marker dice, two long boats, light cannons, swivel guns, and some ship accessories (those were all in those little bags in the photo of the rule book). A pretty solid haul for the overall cost, which was completely paid for with the money I made from selling all my old West End Games Star Wars RPG books - a total of 68 books
. Though I am regretting not getting some of the bigger ships. They have both a Brigantine and a Frigate available as well.

Super excited about this game and the possibilities it could have, both in regards to terrain (I've always wanted to do something with water) and miniatures. What I'm really afraid of though is getting caught up in that new game whirlwind like I did last year with The Chicago Way and me possibly changing for, the what, third time?!, what exactly I'm going to take to Historicon. Because at this point I've done nothing further at all on the WWII game or table. And on top of that GEG just announced another Dead Man's Hand expansion with zombies and the undead...

And here is the old new stuff. Yeah, pretty big soft spot for Batman. Along with Star Wars, Batman was a staple of my early childhood. Even now as a middle aged man; if I had a nickel for every time my wife would roll her eyes at me when she sees me watching The Batman Animated Series cartoons, I'd have a lot of nickels! Anyway,those Mego toys were just fantastic back in the day, the television show with Adam West and Burt Ward was something I looked forward to watching all the time, as well as the cartoons.
...safety pinning a towel around my neck and jumping from the top of the stairs thinking I was a superhero... ah, to be young again.

I watched a few battle reports on YouTube early last year and quickly got interested. I found an incredible deal of the rulebook on Ebay for $10.00 and was officially in, even though the retail prices of the figures is absolutely insane - initially my thought was to use the box full of Heroclix I have for the game - I knew that as much as I may have wanted something (like the Heath Ledger Joker) I was never going to pay full retail for it. Throughout the year I keep looking for the bargains and ended up with this by the end of the year.

The problem now is I don't realistically see me playing this game, despite how cool it looks. I've heard quite a lot of bad things regarding the building of the figures, and I know I don't have the skills to paint them to the level they deserve - nor the extra funds to send them off to be painted to that level, as I'm using those to take care of other miscellaneous figures I need painted.

So, more stuff coming in than currently going out. Will I ever be at a point where there is a balance or that nothing like a whole new game will be coming in? I'd really like to think so, because I've got pretty much every time period I'm interested in either already on the table or waiting in boxes. But I'm sure I'm wrong.

As always, thanks for looking!
Ivor

Jonny Quest Pulp Alley - Mayhem At Musgrave Manor Chapter 1

So begins my first attempt at a Pulp Alley campaign using the solo deck...
The background story can be found here http://saturdaymornings13.blogspot.com/2017/02/pulp-alley-back-story-curse-of-anubis.html

The Curse of Anubis
Chapter 1 - Mayhem at Musgrave Manor

The Quest gang has just arrived at Musgrave Manor.

But unknown to them, at the same time on the other side of the courtyard, so have Dr. Kazem's henchman!

I had 4 perilous areas around the manor, but this was the only one that really came into play though. I had a mysterious gunman in the second floor window of the manor - who is this person, what is he after, and more importantly who's side is he on??!!

Kazem's men, lead by Andreas McLagan, won initiative (by a roll of the D10) and split up moving towards both the main house and the carriage house in an attempt to grab plot points. McLagan was successful on his first challenge "Stand Firm" - which allowed him to shift his recovery checks up 1D type, though he never even came close to needing it.

The Quest gangs first turn saw everyone run towards plot points except for Race. Dr. Quest and Hadji made a beeline towards the manor to get to the professor and his wife first.

While Jonny used his ability - The Jonny Slide (Speedy, level 1) - to run 16" across the courtyard to the corner of the carriage house. And of course Bandit followed :)

Turn 2 had the bad guys pull the "Surprise Twist" card, which meant their activation stopped immediately and allowed the Quest gang to go first instead. This allowed Jonny to get to a minor plot point, which he ended up taking next turn.

While Race moved into position to take some shots at the henchmen going after Jonny.

Dr. Quest and Hadji were just ahead of McLagan, who was hot on their trail, but still hadn't quite made it to the professor.

Two henchman made it into the carriage house but Bandit was there blocking the path to Jonny - he was able to dodge both attacks from them! Good boy Bandit!

Amon Sighn made his way towards another door into the manor, passing his perilous area challenge when mysterious shots were fired at him from a second floor window as he ran across the courtyard.

Meanwhile, Race continued to pick off bad guys, I don't know, like it was his job or something :)

With the weapons plot point secured by Jonny on the last turn, he made his way through the two goons blocking the doorway with the help of Bandit.

Inside the manor, Hadji was able to get to the professor first and by luck got a free pass challenge! Sim sim sala bim! The Quest gang now had two minor plot points and on their way with the professor to grab the major plot point.

With the professor secured, Dr. Quest thought he'd attempt to move the piano in front of the door to block McLagan from his pursuit. Make use of your surroundings I always say. But of course the Dr. failed his might challenge!

Meanwhile, Amon Sighn made his way into the manor in an attempt to take Hadji and Dr. Quest from behind. McLagan and Sighn now had our heroes in tough spot for sure!

With Dr. Quest failing to block the door, McLagan easily made his way into the room and immediately took a shot at Dr. Quest and hit! Quest failed his recovery at the end of the turn which unfortunately took him out of the game!

Hadji in panic mode made a mad dash with the professor through the door and up the stairs, in an attempt to get the professor to his office and to the sarcophagus.

Knowing that Hadji was in a real bind inside the manor, Race made his way towards a rescue attempt. Unfortunately Race came under fire from that mysterious gunman and failed his challenge right outside the door.

Sighn made his way into the foyer and threw his knife knocking Hadji out and now leaving the professor free as a plot point again.

Thankfully Hadji did pass his recovery check to continue on in the game, but not until McLagan ran in and up the stairs to take the professor and his wife.

It was here that the Quest gang realizing that game was nearing it's final turn, that they played the "Decoy" card which after passing their challenge added one more turn onto the game. This was going to be their only chance of stopping McLagan!

Knowing Hadji wasn't going to be any real help in a fight, and with no cards to help, he made a dash through another set of doors to make his way around towards grabbing the map plot point in the luggage in the courtyard.

And similarly with Jonny, he made his way over to the knocked out driver and secured the keys to the car. Back to two plot points for the Quest gang and now one for Kazem's men.

Race burst through the door and was able to take out Amon Sighn.

And Jonny was making his way back towards the manor.

McLagan made his way up to the third floor with the professor in tow, and into his office where the sarcophagus lay waiting.

Hadji made it to the luggage on the final turn and secured the map after passing his challenge - so three plot points for the Quest gang!

McLagan's challenge to take the major plot point was two successes with might, finesse, or cunning...

And he scored successes on all three dice! A minor plot point and the major plot point for the bad guys!

Wow, a bad guys victory; I certainly didn't have that as one of my possible outcomes when I started the game. Dr. Quest failing that might challenge really changed the game for the good guys. Had he been able to push that piano in front of that door, McLagan would have been locked out of that room and wouldn't have been able to burst in and take out Dr. Quest, or basically get the free pass to grab the professor and the information on the sarcophagus.

But I think that's what I really like about Pulp Alley - the story really morphs into its own thing as you play through the game. I definitely had an outline and things to push the story along, but now... this just opens up all kinds of different directions to go into for chapter two! How is the Quest gang going to get the information that was on the sarcophagus? Have the professor and his wife been kidnapped? Who was that mysterious gunman on the second floor? Stay tuned!

As always, thanks for looking!

Ivor