Figure Update

I've been hard at work basing up a ton of figures over the past two weeks or so, and here are the end results :)

This was a WIP on all my German guards.

I have several ideas for games that need guards and I now have 18 that will fit the bill perfectly!

As well as having one with a German Sheppard!

I added a small wire to simulate a leash.

Several high ranking German officers - I'd actually mistakenly bought two of the same blister, but did have the uniforms painted a bit differently so I wouldn't have duplicate uniforms.

I used figures similar to these (the ones I grabbed at the flea market at Historicon) to run a "Dirty Dozen" type of game last summer - of course never did an AAR on it :( - where the Allies infiltrated the 4Ground hotel complex to eliminate as many German officers as possible. These will add to that pool when we give that game a go again this year.

Here are some dismounted US Army tankers. Just really neat uniforms and figures I've wanted to get on the table for a long time.

And my favorite of the group - this model from Warlord has so much narrative to it!

And then we have the French Resistance. I still have about 14 more figures to go, but these are ready to disrupt German operations now!

And my two favorites from this group. The demolition team.

Second group of French Resistance. I'm not sure of the manufacturer as I bought these second hand.

Here are some of my pulp era figures. The red coat captain is my favorite from this group.

These were some of my very first pulp figures I started, early last year if I remember correctly. Anyway, at that time I did the bases before actually painting them, hence the traditional basing. I'm debating on going back and switching them to clear bases though - we'll see.

Mercenaries, which will more than likely be used in Pulp Alley. These are all from Artizan's Thrilling Tales line. I did choose to do the Soviet group with the traditional bases.

I also picked up a pack of Crooked Dice's scuba divers. One of my very first models I built specifically for gaming was from the beginning of 'Goldfinger'; the complex where James Bond infiltrates from the water to blow up the drug making facility. I had the old Victory Games James Bond role playing game and the Goldfinger module. The module had fantastic maps of all the major locations, so I scaled up the plans to work with HO scale figures (which is all we had at the time from my model railroad - I repainted several figures to make them look more like "spy" figures!) and essentially built playable tables. It was really at this point that I was taking RPG's and slowly turning them into tabletop games. I built that and also Goldfinger's compound where Bond had the car chase with the Aston Martin. 'Thunderball' obviously is another one that made me want these figures - Largo's compound was another model I really wanted to build. It was a blast creating those, and really now that I think about it, my first terrain making efforts. Wish I had some photos of them!

Wow, long explanation to simply say that these reminded me of that old game so I had to get them. I had also thought of getting another set and painting them green to go with a possible Jonny Quest scenario like the episode 'The Mystery of the Lizard Men', since I think a lot of the Pulp Alley games are going to surround the Quest gang.

I've also got this HUGE obsession with Agent Carter. First, it falls into that time period I absolutely love. Then it has the spy/mystery thing going on and of course a British woman at the lead, so that's just brilliant! Anyway, another Pulp Alley idea I've had is to run some Agent Carter scenarios, and now I've got the figures.

And finally I've got all but a handful of figures (4 police officers, 3 wounded gangsters, and 5 moonshiners) to paint to have all my gangster era figures 100% complete. Super happy about that! These I'd actually finished late last year, but realized that I hadn't put up any photos of them.

Everything here, above and below, are all from Bob Murch's Gangland line.

Civilian type pulp era figures.

I cut out a wanted sign from one of the 4Ground Chicago Way buildings instructions to add on to the newspaper kid and it worked a treat!

And some group photos on the table.

This is my favorite figure from this group. Again, a ton of narrative with the musical instrument case which of course surely doesn't have a musical instrument in it!

And I have finally found my figures for both Jonny Quest and Hadji, after failing with 3 other purchases. Again, from Bob Murch's excellent pulp line of figures, I'm not sure how I missed this blister at Historicon. The issue I am going to have is the heads. I'm going to need to swap the head off of the Hadji figure to go on Jonny and then source a head with a turban for Hadji. So that's the hurdle for that right now.

As always, thanks for looking!
Ivor

Money Saving Tip For Terrain And Supplies

I wanted to take a minute and give a money saving tip to anyone who reads the blog and is located in the United States.

For the last two years or so I've been using coupons from Michael's craft store to buy glues, paints, brushes, Woodland Scenics trees, tools, and all sorts of other miscellaneous bits and bobs for the hobby.

All these coupons have been in the range of 40% to 60% off. I haven't paid full price for anything listed above in years!

If you have a Michael's near you I absolutely recommend subscribing to their email. I will tell you that they send out an email every single day, which can be a bit annoying, but the money I've saved over the past two years is defintely worth that annoyance!

I usually shop at the actual store because it's only about 10 minutes from the farm and on the way to the grocery store and banks, but my last purchase was actually from the online store.

I received an email with a coupon code for 40% off my entire purchase plus free shipping about a week and a half ago. I jumped right on that because I knew that online had some Woodland Scenics trees that weren't stocked at my store.

I got 3 packs of 5 inch decidious trees, 3 packs of 3 inch decidious trees, 2 packs of evergreen trees, and 2 packs of 1 1/4 inch decidious trees. 47 trees total.  As well as 2 packs of snow, some more X-acto blades, and a bottle of super glue. All for $69.00!!

I've heard Hobby Lobby does a similar program, but I don't have one anywhere close to where I live - which is a bit disappointing because I have been in the one in Fredericksburg during Historicon and I felt they had more items that would be ideal for tabletop gaming. So if you have a Hobby Lobby close by check into subscribing to their emails.

I've been up in the studio finishing clearing off the desk and side table for the last several days, so an update on figures is coming soon :) And then a Pulp Alley AAR with the Jonny Quest gang!!

As always, thanks for looking!
Ivor

*EDIT*
In addition to working here on the farm, I also have my own feed business (for horses, go figure) that takes me throughout the area making deliveries. A new customer contacted me about a delivery in an area I've never been or wasn't familiar with. Anyway, I just completed that delivery and there was a Hobby Lobby that I passed on the way to the farm. On my way home I stopped in and had a look around - this is definitely going to be my go to source for money saving hobby items going forward! I'll have to probably just do online orders but the coupons are there and a much wider variety of hobby items for miniature gaming are available. I just used a 40% off coupon to pick up a Vallejo vehicle weathering kit for $9.00 :)