You Are Without Doubt The Worst Pirate I've Ever Heard Of

I love pirates. Always have since I was little - from the old classic movies like The Sea Hawk, to my hardback copy of Treasure Island, to the amazing Playmobil pirate ship toy I had as a kid that I would customize and play with for hours on end. Anyway, even before Blood and Plunder came out I wanted to do a pirate game and was slowly collecting pirate figures over the years. This batch is a large part of that, though there is still a lot more from Old Glory that need painted.

There are 13 minion type figures in this 41 figure batch.

I'm not going to put photos up of each one as a lot are kind of similar in both pose and paint job, but these few here are some of my favorites of the bunch.

But here we get into the much more flavorful figures :)

All these figures are a mixture of Northstar's On the Seven Seas line, as well as some Old Glory pirates that I bought way back in the day when I had the OG Army Card getting you a crazy 40% off of all items from OG.

The scallywag in the middle has a monkey on his shoulder, how neat is that!

In the middle is an interpretation of Mr. Smee from Peter Pan. Much later in life with a bit more gray in the beard and grog belly falling both out and over his pants :)

Casualty figures are something I really want to have for every type of game I have. I really think they add a lot to a table, and look much better than a figure tipped over on its base.

These are from Foundry I believe, and I'd really like to get at least one more pack. 

And these last three are my absolute favorites, as they have so much character to them. They are so cool I've even given them a photo from the stern view :)

And this particular figure, with a peg leg and a parrot on his shoulder is just brilliant! Fittingly he is listed as Long John Silver on the box, though definitely not your traditional Hollywood version.

Both of these figures come from the Captain Hood set from Northstar.

This figure is listed as the Righteous Edward Leake.

But this is where it's at with this particular group of cutthroats - Edward Teach himself, Blackbeard!

This figure is just on another level in terms of the cool factor! Again, from Northstar Miniatures, and the Blackbeard set. I am so completely blown away by this line that I have ordered the Calico Jack set (that will complete the line for me, as I've decided against picking up the Royal Navy Crew - just not enough variety like in all the other sets) and hope to have that soon :)

Incredibly I got Jakob up to the studio to play a game yesterday and I pulled out one we haven't played in probably six or so years - Wings of War, now named Wings of Glory.

I really wanted to try out the B-17 bomber I bought at Historicon several years ago, so I just threw some blue poster board we used to use for the old Wizkids Pirates of the Spanish game ironically to represent the game board.

Having not played the game in forever I quickly remember why I loved it so much - easy and fun rules and just super cool models.

I had three fighter escorts with my B-17 and Jakob had six German fighters trying to stop me from hitting a target on the other end of the table.

I'd forgotten how neat these models are, and how cool they look together on a table. I need to cut the propellers off and do clear plastic, as well as do the gimble mounts I did with all my WWI planes. It adds a lot to the look of the game for sure.

The B-17 was brutally slow and Jakob just swarmed it despite having 8 different guns to defend with.

He won the game by destroying my B-17, as well as two of the three escorts. I did manage to take out two of his fighters though. It was great just to play a game even though it probably wasn't a fair match up and my objective was so far away, but for throwing something together really on the whim it was great!

I finally managed to obtain my proxy Mary McFly figure (on the right) from someone selling used figures on the 7TV Facebook page. He is from the discontinued Doctor Who line from Crooked Dice, and I'd been desperate to get this figure for quite a while now. Despite being made for Doctor Who he is perfect proxy to use for good 'ol Marty from Back to the Future. Absolutely can't wait to get him!

And finally, hats off to the wife - she got me some really neat shirts from the official Liverpool store across the pond. As you can see from the card, I don't like Christmas at all lol! I don't want to be that way, but that all comes from being from a divorced family at a very young age - holidays, especially Christmas was always something that I didn't look forward to. So while I play the role of the Grinch, she plays the role of the true spirit of Christmas :)

I'm hoping to get one more post in before the New Year, just to show that figures are fully painted, they just need based - and there are a lot, well over 130 Germans for Bolt Action alone :)

Until next time, thanks for looking!
Ivor

A Couple Of Doctors And Some Solvers Of Mystery

More figures based up last night, as I'm slowly chipping away at getting models 100% completed.

Here are Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson from West Wind's Empire of the Dead line. I also have the regular Holmes and Watson from West Wind, but they are on their original big old black bases and need to be switched over to clear bases.

Here is Dr. Jekyl, the other half to my Mr. Hyde completed earlier in the year. Again, from West Winds excellent EotD line.  The toff on the right I think is from Artizan, but can't for the life of me remember. He definitely looks perfect for a Holmes-esque type of game though.

And here is Tin Tin and Snowy. You may remember I had a bit of an accident with Tin Tin over the summer. Well, I did my best to save him and it turned out ok all things considered - definitely should have put a wash over the repainted skin on the face though.

We've just been getting hammered with snow over the last several days (Erie, which is about an hour and a half east of us has gotten over FOUR FEET of snow dumped on them!!??), and this is how hardcore my wife is with this whole horse business!? She actually rides our horses to the farm next door because they have an indoor riding arena. Madness.

As always, thanks for looking!
Ivor

Pirates, Smart As Paint Says I

I always found that line in Treasure Island, "smart as paint" - and in every version too, so it must be taken right from the book - kind of funny and strange at the same time. Anyway, these six figures are the first of many many pirates being based currently and they are from Foundry's Treasure Island Characters blister.

Doctor Livesy.

Long John Silver, sans the classic Disney red coat, but he does have Captain Flint on his shoulder :)

Blind Pew, who is easily my favorite figure of the pack. Christopher Lee played Pew in the Charlton Heston version of Treasure Island (which also has a young Christian Bale as Jim Hawkins) and was just fantastic in the few scenes he was in.

Crazy Ben Gunn.

Jim Hawkins.

And finally Captain Smollett.

I'm sure you're going "Really Ivor, clear bases on pirates?". Yup. And the picture above is the exact reason why. Now I won't have that out of place look of the tradition based figure, with grass/rocks/plants/flowers/etc., while they are on the ships (please excuse the sloop as it only has it's primer on!). So it's clearly clear bases going forward lol!

Until next time, thanks for looking!

Ivor

Jinkies, After School Cartoons Scoob

I'm forty a lot years old and I have no shame in saying I love Scooby Doo :) Or cartoons in general honestly. I have a ridiculous amount of dvd sets of old cartoons that I used to watch as a kid, which are always great to throw on in the background while painting or building up in the studio.

I went back and re-based those meddling kids and their dog onto clear bases. These figures have seen a lot of work in the board games Betrayal At House On The Hill and Clue: Great Museum Caper - which if your not familiar is an absolutely brilliant hidden movement tabletop game.

I think the Mystery Inc. gang would be perfect for Pulp Alley. I know Chris at Sally 4th has put together a few games using them in the past.

So fingers crossed I can get the Mystery Inc. gang to bring their meddling ways into PA in the new year.

And finally, I also got one of Crooked Dice's ninja figures completed. I had him painted up to resemble Storm Shadow from the old G.I. Joe cartoons and comic books, who was always a favorite of mine. Growing up Hasbro's G.I. Joe toy line had hands down some of the greatest figures and playsets produced - the aircraft carrier USS Flagg... I'm not sure there was ever a better toy made!

Lots more Hollywood-esque figures being based up currently, so look for more posts like this before 2017 ends :)

As always, thanks for looking!
Ivor

2017 The Year Of The Kickstarter

In an effort to spend more money and get lots of stuff I surely won't build or paint in a timely manner, this year I backed 11 Kickstarter projects and 10 were successful. To date, two have completed their pledges.

The first one I did this year was from Dungeon Lair. Lots of neat little scatter pieces and detail items that really enhance a table. Even though I don't have a dungeon crawl game per se, all these items I thought would fit perfectly into the manor complex buildings, especially with the tables, desks, bookcases and the really neat fireplaces.

Not gaming related but I can't pass on an opportunity to help get more of the funny out from the guys at Rifftrax (formerly of Mystery Science Theater fame). And this year they absolutely knocked it out of the park with their riff of "Samurai Cop"! Over the course of 90 minutes I don't think I ever laughed so hard in my whole life! This was also one of the two KS I mentioned earlier to deliver on all pledges so far.

I went full on into stupid mode on the second Blood and Plunder KS, spending the most money out of all of this years backings. And that was solely based on everything I saw at Historicon and meeting and talking with all the Firelock guys. The ships are really what did it - seeing them all painted up, the rigging, the cannons, and all the figures on the decks... wow!

This was me back at the hotel that night figuring out all the new add-ons and how much my initial two player pledge was going to increase :) It came close to tripling my initial pledge.

It was really great to see Dave Phipps put up his first KS with the latest addition to the Pulp Alley expansions with the Lost World of Lemuria. And he did an absolutely amazing job with it! This is slowly turning into one of my favorite game systems. All pledges for this KS were fulfilled to 100% within a few months of it ending - a big hats off to Dave!

I stumbled across this KS and thought what a cool idea to add some atmosphere to a game - specifically to the yet to be built secret Hydra facility where Agent Carter will heroically thwart the evil plans of Red Skull. Who knows, maybe even just having fog crawl across the table of a game of Bolt Action would be neat as well.

Of all the KS I backed this year this is the one that's not doing a lot for me now that it's in production. Hopefully that'll change once I actually have them in hand. What made me jump aboard was modern civilians. There were some neat scientists that I thought could be useful pulp-wise, and it wasn't an expensive KS, so I thought why not. But this one is definitely on the bottom of the list in terms of excitement.

I'm a pretty awful painter. I've heard about wet palette's for a while now and supposedly they help the noob with their brushwork. It just looked like a really neat tool and I liked the whole package it was presented in. So fingers crossed it ends up helping.

With Star Wars Legion right on the horizon, and the inevitability of me going full on stupid mode buying all in on it, I backed a really neat Endor mdf terrain KS from Battle Kiwi. Don't tell 4Ground because I feel like I'm cheating on them with the new hot girl lol! I'm sure the guys at 4Ground will have a whole line of Legion themed terrain - though they really need to get going on it quickly - but this was a pretty good deal value-wise, despite shipping from Australia, so I figured what the heck.

I'd been wanting some lost continent themed terrain, specifically huts, for some time now as I felt it would be perfect for pulp gaming. This KS had a bit of everything I wanted; huts, tons of animals, canoes, really neat scatter terrain pieces, and a super cool replica of Humphrey Bogart and his boat from The African Queen. Really looking forward to this one! Bummed that I couldn't get the captured explorers in the cooking pot as an unlock goal though :(

And the last one of the year was from Forrest Harris at Knuckleduster. My first dice rolls in skirmish gaming were in the Old West with GEG's Dead Man's Hand and I absolutely loved it. The Old West is a theme I really love and can easily jump back into when the mood strikes and with Forrest's excellent figures that is surely to happen soon. I think his figures are hands down the best for that era. This KS has a new set of rules which I'm really interested in seeing and the amount of free unlock goal items being given away made this an absolute no brainer.

The Chariots of Rome was the only KS I backed that didn't get funded. This is a board game in the vein of Circus Maximus without all the complicated rules. I thought it would be fun to try to take these rules and build an actual table with miniatures and why I jumped in on it. As I mentioned they were about 3k short of the KS goal but Victory Point Games still is producing the game and I pledged outside of KS. They just announced that the games are arriving from overseas so really looking forward to seeing this.

All I can say is thank goodness I don't have a 3D printer because the amount of Kickstarter's that sell files for miniature terrain is staggering, so for now I will be sticking with the old fashioned miniature gaming KS's :)

As always, thanks for looking and happy holidays to everyone!
Ivor