Water Weird from Reaper

Another one of the minis I got from the Reaper Bones II kickstarter. This time it is a water weird.

Quick paintjob – basecoated with Vallejo Foundation White, a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone ink to see the details and to see and clean the mould lines. 

Vallejo Iraqui Sand with another wash of Strong Tone and a final drybrush with Iraqui Sand and finally matt varnish. The Water Weird got a coat of gloss varnish as it looked rather dull/matt without it.

Dutch Canal Bridge by Sarissa Precision

This took some time, but now it is finished. It’s the Dutch Canal Bridge by Sarissa, an excellent MDF-kit that will give you a very nice bridge straight out of the box. Good value for £17.50.

But I wanted it to go with the stone-look of my harbour, so it took a somewhat longer time to make…

On the first bridge-half I made individual stones. I cut thin slices of pink polystyrene foam and cut the stones from that. Took a long time and I went for strips that I 'wrote' stones on after a while. Far easier.

Side-stones had to be form-fitted. Tedious work...

One half ready and stone-structure impressed on it.

More info on how to press stonework in my first post on the making of Soerabaja harbour.

This is my Useful Stone. Suitably uneven and with a pointy end, suitable for smaller areas.

More stonework inserted under the bridge.

Stones painted with household paint (Flügger Grå (Grey) Umbra)

Stonework drybrushed with Flügger Lava.

Woodwork painted Vallejo Chocholate Brown and drybrushed Cork Brown.

Here it is, in the open position.

The harbour is in Dutch East Indies, so a dutch canal bridge seem to be appropriate

One of the cars I had as a child. Well played with and now in my to-do box as it could be used in pulp gaming.

Far East Asian Hand Carts from 4Ground

Two fantastic 28mm hand carts from 4Ground and perfect for my Dutch East Indian harbour.

Assembled in minutes. A quick drybrush with Vallejo Cork Brown and the wood looked good. I painted the steel rims of the wheels with Vallejo Gunmetal Grey.

Total time about half an hour and that gave me two pieces of clutter suitable for all manner of games set in East Asia.

Work in progress – Soerabaja Harbour part II

I have made quite a bit of progress on the Dutch East Indian harbour of Soerabaja. In the first post I had cut out most of the parts and finished one of them and also gave some tips on how to transform pink polystyrene sheets into decent looking stone.

This was rather tedious... to say the least.

I 'wrote' some cracket stones here and there.

I’ve cut the pieces with my trusty hobby knife with extractable blade. It’s a very good idea to use fresh blades. Trust me. It's difficult to cut the corners even with a sharp blade. 

Starting to look like a stone dock.

The gap between the main harbour and the removable jetty. A slight warping of the long harbour-piece made a small height difference. Not much and I feel it's okay.

As you can see I’ve started to give the fantastic Sarissa bridge some stonework. More on that in a future post.

I actually used my brain during construction! The steps take a 1" base.

Now I’ve finished all those parts and the whole thing as starting to look rather interesting.

I’ve decided to make a couple more stone jetties of different sizes to be able to rebuild the harbour in different ways.

You can see a tug that just arrived in the post and I'm still waiting for a crane. 

More updates to come.

Skeleton Throne from Reaper

This is another mini from the Reaper Bones II kickstarter. It is the Dragoth the Defiler, Undead Lord on Throne kit sculpted by Bob Ridolphi, but obviously without Dragoth. It’s got number 77201 in the DarkHeaven Bones series and you can get it in metal too.

It will probably be more useful without the skellie, so I removed that and green-stuffed the resulting hole in the seat. I can always paint up the skeleton later and place it on the throne if I need to. Maybe an evil overlord for a pulp-game will sit on it one day. You never know.

I used Vallejo Iraqui Sand for the throne, Vallejo Game Color Bone White for skulls and bones and Citadel Scab Red for cloth, followed by a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone ink.

Speaking of Bones kickstarters, there is another one going on just now – Reaper Miniatures Bones III. I guess it will be an insane amount of Reaper figures for a very reasonable price, so it might be worth it to have a look.

Welcome new followers:

Kingdom of Katzenstein, a blog on an imagi-nation with the same name and pulp, WWII, SF, Fantasy and more. Something for everyone.

A.J. with blogs Adrian J. Matthews (about his book projects), Ajay’s Blogspot (more book projects), Smiling Assassin Productions (where you can get your grubby gaming-hands on the stuff he produces) and The Hetzenberg Chronicles (an imagi-nation and everything about it), A J’s Wargames Table (what he’s doing games-related). Busy man, indeed!

Pulp Alley – Perilous Island campaign, scenario 1 – Hidalgo Fire

In the previous adventure our heroes found a clue to the rather forgotten Forgotten Island, a not so fabled place as it is mostly unknown. Goes with the name, I guess.

Anyway, to get more information we need to find Lady Elane Darrow and she was last seen in Mexico, excavating Toltec ruins.

After a long trip with planes, trains, automobiles and finally burros we have Lady Elaine’s camp in sight.

A bird's view of the gaming table. 

We're goint to get Lady Eliane (major plot point, in the middle of the table), her diary in one of the tents (monor plot point), an ancient artifact (on the right, will impress Benito), Elaines luggage (could hold important clues) and her loyal maid.

But what is that? Damnation, more adventurers seem to have Lady Elaine in their sights. Now we must rush to get our hands on all the stuff!

The antagonists in this game:

The CSSS – Corpo di Spedizione Santa Sede. Not a lot of extra hands this time, just José, a level 1 shooter.

Order of the Blue Tie – the snob dressed in green and with a double barrel shotgun is their leader, and that dog is one mean sidekick (the handler is only for show). A new gang.

The Belgian League led by Dr. Castroulle, the King of Pommes Frites, as usual. We've met them before.

Three belgians set up in the middle of this picture. They have their eyes set on the ancient artifact on the lower part of the pic. Two blue-tied gentlemen in the upper right corner, ready to rush the maid to their left. Two more lower right, ready to contest the artifact.

The leader of the Order of the Blue Tie, his dog sidekick and a follower sets up in the jungle. They have their eyes on the burro with Lady Elaine's luggage.

The CSSS sets up in the lower lefthand corner. We intend to take the diary in the tent and have a go at Lady Elaine.

One member of the Order moves on the artifact, and fells a Belgian with a well aimed shot. He unfortunately meets Miss Mayhem, or rather her sledge-hammer. Poor chap.

Our men moves close to the tent while Belgians moves towards Lady Elaine.

The Order sidekick attacks poor José...

Monsignore secures the diary while the the Order tries to secure the luggage. They succeeds only partially.

The Belgians seduces the maid behind the back of one of the gentlemen of the Order.

My soldiers fells one of the Belgians skulking about.

Padre Sicario fells one of the Order while their leader secures the luggage.

The rabid Order Sidekick attacks and fells first Soura Innocenza...

...and then Padre Sicario. Catastrophy!

A new round and Soura is out of the game while Padre stands up.

Miss Mayhem defends the artifact

Monignore Cadaverica retreats with his plot point.

At the start of round four mysterious agent sets of four incendiary explosives. The 3" bursts will be extremely perilous for the remainder of the game. One hits the Leader of the Order.

Monsignore and a brave soldier gets that Pesky Belgian once and for all and then retreats to the table corner, out of harm's way.

This burst hits the close combat and fells Padre.

The Order tries to sweet-talk Lady Elaine into joining them, but she hates their fashon sense and rejects their offer. Blue ties! What were they thinking of?

Another incendiary bomb fells a Belgian gentleman

The Belgian leader fells the man from the Order

and Miss Mayhem knocks the teeth out of another

The last round and Padre rises again but his pith helmet catches fire and he faints one last time.

Frantic scramblings to secure and protect the plot points. The game ends with

The luggagge securely in the hands of the Order

Lady Elaine sweet talked into helping the Belgians

The CSSS with the diary

Miss Mayhem in control of the artifact

The maid abducted by the Belgian leauge.

I made a lot of mistakes here, the primary one was that I forgot that the most important thing is the plot points and not killing other characters. The latter is of course always great fun, but it might not be the smartest thing to do with your meagre assets. Well, there will be more games.

That was the first scenario of the Perilous Island campaign. A really good campaign-booklet for and from Pulp Alley. It is also available as a PDF.

Welcome followers Myincubliss and José Rocha.