A Fistful of Baggage from Great Escape Games

‘A Fistful of Baggage’ is a great little resin-set of approximately 20 different boxes, bags and other baggage scaled for 28mm gaming. I bought it from Great Escape Games for my Dead Man’s Hand games, but it will work equally well in historical settings and Pulp.

Pulp is where it will see action now as we play a Pulp Alley campaign at the club and it will go there today for a game.

All pieces need quite a lot of cleaning but not in any way difficult.

Wood painted in different browns and metal was painted Gunmetal Grey. Everything washed with Army Painter Strong Tone ink and the wood was drybrushed with Buff.

Quickly done and the result is a nice selection of scatter terrain that will come in handy in a warehouse in Istanbul, Soerabaja Harbour and elsewhere.

Pulp Alley – Perilous Island campaign, scenario 2 – Final Flight

We played this game in in late June, so this Pulp Alley AAR is a little bit late.

The scenario is made for two leagues but we all wanted to play and modified the scenario so that we made to teams of two leagues each. That turned out to be a less than ideal solution as the game became rather cramped with all figures trying to reach the plane at the same.

The scenario then.

It’s from the Perilous Island campaign book for Pulp Alley. Our heroes have made a stop in Casablanca where unrest is spreading. At the airport the crowds are on the brink of a riot and Foreign Legion soldiers are the only thing stopping them. There seem to be only one plane left and the leagues either have to take it to safety or try to sabotage it.

A couple of scenario specific rules make this rather interesting.

- Foreign Legion – they are there to uphold the peace and quiet. If you use Brawl or Shoot they get rather upset and you become wanted. The whole board will become extremely perilous for that character for the rest of the game. Trust me, not good at all, especially if you’re low level.

- only two plot point markers are placed at the beginning of the game – tickets and the package (a bomb or something sinister). The league trying to get Lady Elaine onto the plane starts trying to unlock the tickets and the league trying to stop them tries the package.

- Further plot points unveiled when the first ones are unlocked (Lady Elaine or a mechanic for those trying to stop the plane)

-Final plot point is the plane – either get Lady Elaine onboard it or get the mechanic to sabotage it.

When we rolled for special conditions it turned out that there is a sandstorm brewing – meaning vision is limited. On top of everything.

The Heroes:

Hooray! The true Heroes! The CSSS ready to save the world. Or at least the Catholic part of it. Damn the rest. This time Soldato Maligno was down with stomach cramps (serves him right for gorging himself on dates) and Maria, our trusted and boodthirsty dog, took his place. We also had Ahmed, a trusted local, on our side. We met him in a previous adventure set in Egypt. He's not in this pic as he is a bit shy.

The Independent Phrenologist - well, not exactly good, but we're seeing them and their 'secret' sponsor as possible future allies in Il Duce's plans for Mare Nostre. We had better make them believe we help them. In secret we despise them and their silly Führer with his stupid moustasche.

The Evil (just look at them) Opposition:

The Belgian League - met them before. Not nice fellas at all. Probably Protestants. They should burn.

The International Egyptological Society (aka The Cult of Ra) - need I say more. We are truly fighting evil scum. They are not even Protestants...

Let the action commence!

The set-up. Good guys in lower left corner and baddies in upper right. My hangar functions in this scale also. Huge thing.

The vile opposition and their first objective in the cart. A Foreign Legion soldier keeps order.

Our heroes and their temporary allies. Our objective, the tickets, are before the Ticket Office, guarded by a greedy clerk.

The last plane from Casablanca. Miscatonic Airways - you can always trust them.

A view of the hangar, a local selling food for the coming trip and some workers. The latter barely moved during the whole action and that sort of proves the inability of the locals to do any thing right without proper supervision.
We do them a great service by having these colonies. But they should be Italian of course. That will be rectified.

First round. Monsignore starts bickering with the clerk and the rest of the gangs move forward. 

Soura Innocenza is Speedy and she takes up station by the plane, but the opposition closes in.

The baddies surrounds the baggage cart, searching for the bomb one of their contacts have squirelled away.

More baddies reach the plane.

A new round and the heroes of the CSSS reaches the plane and makes a protective ring around the entrance to it. 

Soura sneaks through the enemy lines and looks threatening. She is attacked here and starts to be surrounded. It looks grim and she will be needed elsewhere soon. But she worked well as a speedbump.

Tightening the ring around the entrance. You can see Soura Innocenza by the tail of the plane. She ran full speed back to friendly lines.

Monsignore got the tickets and has arrived at the plane, protected by Phrenologists. 

But the hordes of Cultists starts to surround the plane...

...on both sides.

Here we have located Lady Elaine. But she's a long way from the plane. Will she and her escort arrive unmolested or will they be overwhelmed by bloodthirsty cultists? 

She is heroically escorted to the plane by the Phrenologist leader, Herr Doktor Kopfgelände.

Soura Innocenza and Sister Sigrid against the world. They would probably make it through...

We are truly surrounded!

But it doesn't matter as Monsignore and Herr Doktor flashes their tickets and enters the plane escorting Lady Elaine to a comfortable seat by the window.
Aaaah, that champagne looks excellent. Ice-cold, just what you need after all that sand.

There's the bomb and also the mechanic scratching his head and being escorted by Miss Mayhem. They are to late as the propellers start spinning and the final flight from Casablanca taxies away.
The cultists and Belgians grind their teeth as the see Her Doctor and Monsignore toast them with glasses of sparkling Champagne. The humiliation...
Those left have only to find other means to reach Istanbul, the next stop on the road to Perilous Island.

To be continued!

Next game on Monday and this time I will write the report a bit faster J

Female Fighter from Otherworld

Another Otherworld miniature, this time the Human Female Fighter by Otherworld. It’s from their Dungeon Adventurers Series, and as always it portrays an adventurer prepared for a dungeon delve. In this case it means that she carries a backpack and a rope and a ranged weapon - a crossbow with a quiver of bolts.

A great mini.

Steam tugboat from HLBS

The latest addition Soerabaja Harbour is this steam tugboat from HLBS. They’ve got quite a good range of boats and ships, mostly military, and this one is perfect for my little harbour.

It’s made of six pieces of resin and everything fits well. 

A 28mm figure to get a feeling for the size. It is unfortunately a bit cramped for based figures.

I looked at photos of older tugs and found this paint-scheme – black, red and yellow - that I quite like.

I weathered the boat heavily as it is, in my mind, having a hard time in the Dutch East Indies colony. Where ships go to slowly die of neglect.

A fun piece to paint.

The algae bloom is severe in the harbour this time of the year :-)

Basilisk from Reaper

It summer and I’ve been at our summer-place (in the archipelago and with very limited internet) and also on Gotland (more on that in a future post) so I haven’t had much time to model or write blog-posts. That will hopefully change now!

There’s a lot of half-finished stuff on the painting table at the moment. I had a small break from Soerabaja Harbour and all the ships and boats and instead started with some fantasy figures for a change.

This one is a Basilisk from Reaper and their Bones II Kickstarter and it doesn’t seem to have been released yet. I removed the integrated base and instead put it on a clear base from Sally 4^th. Needed a bit of trimming to look good but nothing major.

Basecoated with Vallejo Foundation White and washed with Army Painter Dark Tone Ink to show the details and reveal the mould lines I had missed cleaning off.

It then got a coat of Vallejo 984 Flat Brown followed by a wash of AP Dark Tone. Then drybrushed with Vallejo 984 Flat Brown, 875 Beige Brown and a final highlight of 876 Brown Sand. Throat and general underside got a drybrush of 877 Gold Brown. Claws are black and fangs Bone White. Eyes were painted with Citadel Scorpion Green and they got a coat of gloss varnish while the rest of the mini was protected with matte varnish. Done!

Don't look him in the eyes!

Welcome new Followers and Google+ Followers:

Stephen Hall – with WARGAMES & WIPS! – a nice blog covering lots of different eras, both historical and not.

Morikun – with Le Temple de Morikun – also a lot of different topics and very nice indeed.

Preacher by Day – with preacher by day… mild mannered wargamer by night – I’m already a follower of his site and it was the Pulp Alley stuff that drew me in. There is other stuff also.

Do check them out – it’s a good way of finding new and exciting blogs.