Classic Movies Miniatures Episode Two Kickstarter

Just wanted to give a quick shout out to a current Kickstarter  from Sally 4th that has about two days left.

This one is pretty neat because I backed this initially to get some Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon figures.

Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet figures, YES PLEASE!! But by backing you also get to suggest what the next set of figures should be.

Last year when I ran my Agent Carter game, the initial narrative had Carter and members of the Howling Commandos fighting Red Skull. Well, no Howling Commandos figures exist and I tried to find proxies and didn't have much luck. So the narrative of the game ended up changing.

Fast forward to today and my suggestion for the Howling Commandos won the vote for the next set of figures! Absolutely chuffed that I'll finally get a Dum Dum Dugan figure!! Maybe this will be the thing that will push me back into finishing up the Carter game :) Still up in the air for the other three figures, but again it looks like a majority vote will decide.

Anyway, still time to jump in on this one if it at all interests you. Sally 4th also have a really neat Tales of the Gold Monkey (a television show from the 80's that was clearly trying to coattail the success of Indiana Jones. But it did have a awesome airplane - a Grumman Goose named Cutter's Goose - and great sidekick Jack Russell terrier named Jack who wore an eye patch and would bark once for "no" and twice for "yes" lol!) that is perfect for pulpy island adventures too.

Until next time, thanks for looking!
Ivor

A Few Kickstarter Fulfillments

About two weeks ago I had 3 Kickstarters I backed arrive in the mail, and it felt a bit like it was Christmas in the summertime :)

The first one was the Fog Monster by Real Game FX. This one had no special packaging, just came in several boxes. This project funded on August 31, 2017, almost doubling its initial goal with 778 backers. The estimated delivery for the machine was December 2017, so about six months late - not horrible in the world of Kickstarters. In addition to the fog machine I also got some LED lights with a remote where you can change the color of the lights. I also got a fan to increase the output of fog, and an adaptor for machine where I can hook up six small tubes to get fog to spread throughout the table more efficiently.

I will say, and you can see it on the comments of the project, that Real Game FX really mucked up the shipping to a level that almost ruined the whole project. It's a bit too complicated to go into here, but hopefully they will have learned a valuable lesson on free shipping for anything planned for the future. 

So what do I think of this little machine? It's absolutely brilliant!! It worked straight away, though it would have been nice to have an instruction sheet in the box instead of a link to the YouTube channel. Regardless, I was both smiling ear to ear and laughing a bit at how boss it was as it was cranking out the fog! The photo above doesn't do it justice, so I think I'm going to have to reactivate my YouTube channel so you can really see the effect lol! Look for this to be used in a game in the future for sure.

About a day later my Viral Outbreak figures showed up. This project funded on October 6th 2017, going over 10k over its goal. Planned delivery was for February 2018, so only 4 months late, which is really good.

The packaging on this is top notch. What initially drew me to this KS was the fact that every figure didn't have a weapon. I like to be able to have just regular figures on the table not armed to the teeth, and these looked like they would fill that void.

But for whatever reason, as the project was in production I just wasn't "feeling" the excitement for these figures - and I even mentioned that in my Kickstarter post earlier this year that outlined everything I backed in 2017.

And now that they have arrived, unfortunately I still am not excited by the figures.

I thought they could work for The Walking Dead, but no way.

Pretty close to Warlord's Bolt Action figures in size.

And next to some Walkers. Unfortunately this box of figures is going into the sell pile.

And finally the last KS to show up was the Everlasting Wet Palette by Redgrass Games. This project was created in Paris, France and funded on October 17th - crushing their goal by 280k with almost 8,000 backers. Estimated delivery was March 2018, so again about four months past that estimate which is really on time in my eyes.

This is definitely a project I was looking forward to, as I really hope it will help improve my painting. The packing on this one is top notch as well.

This is what everyone got who backed the project, the only difference would have been the amount of extra hydration paper and hydration foam packets you ordered. The cost on everything in the above photo was $30.00 usd.

I got two packets of the foam pads.

And two packets of the hydration sheets. 

Super happy with the Fog Machine and the Wet Palette, and hopefully I can get the Outbreak figures into someone's hands who can use them :)

Until next time, thanks for looking!

Cheers!
Ivor

More Pirates Too? Sure, Why Not

I've somehow managed to get more pirates finished and newly based with the next and final iteration of the quest to find the perfect clear base - more on than later.

Here is the group of 20, mostly from Northstar - though honestly, I have the hardest time trying to remember manufacturers anymore, mostly because stuff was bought ages ago.

I particularly like this group because it has Captain Jack Sparrow and Smee from Peter Pan.

Figures like the one looking through the spyglass are ones I absolutely love - I really like a pose that tells a bit of a story. What's he looking at? A ship in pursuit, or perhaps one he's after. Maybe it's some kind of sea monster on the horizon or perhaps the island with buried treasure on it :)

Someone needs to get Ms. Boney an undershirt.

The figure on the left really stands out as he has some manacles on his ankles - again, telling a bit of a story of a recent escape, and that necklace is just boss!

And the final four. The lady on the far right has a bit of a resemblance to Eleanor Guthrie from Black Sails, which is quite neat.

As mentioned above, I'm sure you've noticed the bases on this group is completely different from what I'd been doing clear base wise for the last year and a half. The new bases were created with a circle punch and the plastic is from the packaging from model railroad buildings.

I've now gone to an ultra thin clear base and I think I've finally found the look I've been after since trying the clear base - these new bases equate out to 20mm or 3/4 of an inch. The figure on the left has the 25mm Litko 1.5mm thick base and as you can see the difference is just huge. I initially had hesitations about going to 20mm as I thought they would be too small to handle the figures - I couldn't have been more wrong!

I've read on different forums and threads in the past that those who use clear bases are "lazy" and that's why they use them. The photo above is why I use them and will always use them going forward for skirmish game figures. Traditional basing in this instance would just look odd. With a clear base, no matter where that figure is (on a road, in a building, in a dungeon, on a boat, in the desert, etc. etc. etc.) on the table it's never going to look out of place, like here.

And just as another quick comparison shot, you can see how much better the new base looks compared to the old Litko one.

Here is the entire group on my sloop (yet to be finished - apologies lol!) from Blood and Plunder. I could easily get another 8 figures on the boat even with all the cannons added - that's almost 30 figures!!?? And all because of the type of base I'm using.

Penny pinching time - I managed to score a whole bunch of clearance hobby stuff. If you have a Hobby Lobby anywhere close to you I highly recommend getting out there as quickly as you can to see what you can pick up.  This lot in the photo I found between two stores - I hit one other one but they were cleaned out. This is a total of 23 items retailing at $269.77 that I got for only $67.77!!?? Madness.

I'd wanted to get this out before Wednesday but wasn't able to so I could wish all those going to Historicon a great time and all the best to those running games as well (Miles, David, Kalissa, Joe). I really wish I could have been there - especially when I found out that 4Ground were going to be at the event for the first time ever!?!? That one was really crushing for me, I would have loved for the guys to have seen the conversions I've done with there kits in person :(

I've got a Kickstarter post coming up as I've had three backings come in over the last several weeks - the Fog Monster from Real Game FX is one of the coolest things ever gotten my hands on for sure!

Until next time, thanks for looking!
Ivor