Another little diorama

 Strange lights had been seen in the ruins of the old abbey on the hill. A woman from the government and a group of armed ATS women went to investigate. German agents were suspected.

No one expected alien beings. The big questions now were "Why are they here?" and "Were they allies of the UK or Germany?"

The ATS group all all by Bad Squiddo and the aliens are Radon Zombies of the Ionosphere by Bob Murch, available via North Star.

This was a fun idea and I think it came out OK. 

The Ruins are from Renedra and the background is by Jon Hodgson.

The technical (ha!) details are the same as in previous posts of my dioramas, i.e. the camera was a Pentax K-70 DSLR and Pentax  DA 1:3.5-5.6 18-55mm AL WR standard zoom lens, mounted on a tripod. The picture was shot using aperture priority with an aperture of f25 and an ISO 400 film speed. I used a JJC TM electronic remote shutter release to prevent any camera shake. I staged the picture in my lightbox, which has variable brightness LED lights.

More Bob Murch Pulp figures.

These five are the "Rugged Adventuresses" set.

This set is rather interesting, I think, because they definitely have a kind of Back Of Beyond/Indiana Jones female villains vibe going on. The figure on the front right is carrying what looks very much like a Degtyaryov DP-27 light machine gun, which came into service in the late-1920s, and the woman on the far left has a Mauser C96 pistol, and has a somewhat Eastern European look to her uniform. The pilot, rear centre looks pretty Germanic to me too and the other two figures could either be heroic or villainous.

All in all, another great set of figures from the excellent Bob Murch Pulp Adventures range, available in the UK from North Star.

Some Bob Murch Pulp figures

One of my aims for this year is to reduce the lead mountain. One specific target is to paint up as many of my backlog of Pulp figures as possible.

This group of five are called Count Casamir's Trans-Siberian Renegades and comprise Count Casamir, Blotsky his Chief of Secret Police, his wife the Countess, Misha the faithful bodyguard and Yolanda his daughter. 

They are incredibly full of character, a hallmark of the excellent work of Bob Murch. His figures are available from North Star in the UK and I recommend them to anyone who likes the Pulp genre.

I decided to go with a different colour palette to the one chosen by Bob Murch, because I like to give my toys my own interpretation. They were fun to paint, mainly because they are so well-sculpted and cast, but also because they just look so good. The one I found the trickiest was Misha, the sailor bodyguard. I tried my best with the hoops, but I'm not sure I've done him justice. Oveall, though, I think they have turned out rather nicely.

They clearly have lots of possibilities for gaming and I really hope they will get some action at some point.

The final plainclothes Syldavian agents

Well, here are the two final plainclothes members of my Syldavian secret policemen. As previously, they are from the North Star Steampunk range. 

The eagle-eyed amongst you will note that they are duplicate poses to two of the others. I don't see this as any kind of a problem, because they have been painted in different colours. I think that the chap on the left looks a bit like Neville Chamberlain. I expect that he takes a much firmer line with miscreants and ne'er-do-wells though.

I can see these figures in all manner of settings. Blasting away fruitlessly at Shoggoths in Cthulhu-based games is a distinct possibility, as are supporting roles on Pulp games too.

So, now I have to paint up some uniformed members of the Königliche Gendarmerie. That should be fun. When they are done, that will mean that my Syldavian company for  In Her Majesty's Name is complete.

More Syldavian Secret police

Following on from my previous post, here are three more members of the Syldavian Security and Intelligence Service, the Vohunska.

You will note that the left-hand figure is the same pose as in the previous post. It isn't really an issue and, in any case I have painted him differently.

The middle figure is a second character, an assistant to Inspektor Eugen Jaegermann. He is Detektiv Samuel Tylenburger. Unlike his blunt and plain-speaking boss, Detektiv Tylenburger likes to think of himself as a man of the future and, as a graduate of the Institut der Wissenschaft in Klow takes a scientific approach to his work. A younger man, the Detektiv comes from the coastal city of Douma, where his family has roots going back to the early 18th century. His father, a leading merchant is currently the Bürgermeister of Douma and has been a member of the city council, the Stadtverwaltung for around 20 years.

Like the first three, these are also from the North Star Steampunk range and will serve as other things than just Syldavian agents. I will use them as Scotland Yard detectives and anywhere else where I need some chaps in plainclothes. I will use them for games of  In Her Majesty's Name and pulp and Cthulhu Mythos games.

The first of the Syldavian Secret Police

In a previous post, I talked about the Syldavian Security and Intelligence Service, officially the Varnosti Policija but popularly called the Vohunska i.e. "the Spies". Here is the start of my company of Vohunska agents and their uniformed assistants in the Königliche Gendarmerie.

Represented here is a senior agent of the Vohunska, Inspektor Eugen Jaegermann flanked by two of his agents. The Inspektor is a feared figure amongst the Syldavian Underworld, both with normal criminals who remember him from his days as a detective in the Königliche Gendarmerie and also with subversives in anarchist and other political groups. He is hated by the Bordurian Informat, who have put a price on his head because of his work exposing and eliminating clandestine operatives and saboteurs in Bordurian emigré communities. Jaegermann comes from the city of Travunje, south of the capital, Klow and joined the Gendarmerie after his mandatory period of conscription in the Syldavian Army. He is known for his blunt manner and his ability to get results where others have failed.

Vohunska agents work in plainclothes and officially they are part of the Syldavian Ministry of Justice, unlike the Gendarmerie who are part of the Army. They have a wide-ranging brief, which encompasses internal security and intelligence-gathering, as well as operating as intelligence agents in other countries. They may also, under certain circumstances work with the Gendarmerie's Bureau of Investigations, the Untersuchungsbüro. 

In many operations, the Vohunska will call upon support from the uniformed Gendarmerie when extra manpower is required.

These figures are from the North Star Steampunk range and will serve as other things than just Syldavian agents. I will use them as Scotland Yard detectives and anywhere else where I need some chaps in plainclothes. I will use them for games of  In Her Majesty's Name and pulp and Cthulhu Mythos games.

n.b. Eugen Jaegermann is a sort of Germanised version of Gene Hunt from the TV series "Life On Mars"

More Pulp figures

Here are some more of the excellent Bob Murch Pulp Figures miniatures which are stocked by North Star. I cannot stress how much I like and covet these figures. There are so many great things in the range that it seems a shame not to buy all of them!

These are 1920s US Marines, which I can see being used in a wide range of Pulp games, anything from adventures featuring disturbing Eldritch Terrors to defending the Earth against an Unknown Alien Menace seeking to abduct and enslave humans. They might even have to face off against Chinese pirates, Bolshevik agents or some other mundane opponents.

First, some Marines in Brody helmets. Four with rifles and one with a shotgun.

The rest are all wearing Montana hats. This group consists of a lieutenant with a pistol, two riflemen, another shotgunner and one marine with a Thompson submachine gun.

The final group has two more riflemen, another shotgunner, another Tommy gun-armed marine and one marine with a Browning Automatic Rifle.

So, pretty well equipped to face all kinds of enemies, from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, plus all points in between and also places even further away.

I'm not sure how accurate the colour palette I've chosen is in real terms but I think that their look and feel is pretty nice overall. They are really nice sculpts and they paint up really well. They have a nice larger than life appearance, as befits their Pulp status and the figures have loads of character. Like I said, I want MORE!!!!!

Radon Zombies of the Ionosphere

My lead pile reduces further with the completion of the Bob Murch Radon Zombie figures from his excellent Pulp Figures range, bought from North Star. I've coveted these figures for ages, but never really had a reason to possess them until Crooked Dice released 7TV Pulp. 

These figures are perfect for the kind of games that can be set in the world of those old black and white film serials that were staples of the Saturday Morning Pictures of my childhood. Here are some of the basic Radon Zombies with a variety of rayguns (they have to be rayguns, no one had lasers or light sabres back then).

Next, here is some heavy support in the shape of a dastardly beam projector or perhaps an Ion Cannon. This surely has to have a range of settings, beginning with "Stun" and passing via "Enslave" and "Kill" onto "Mutate", or worse, Mwahahahahahahaha!

Finally, here are a few characters;

From left to right, there is a guy with some kind of weird weapon (probably a Mind Control Projector, ready to turn the people of Earth into slaves), a female Commander and an undercover Zombie (surely completely undetectable in his fedora hat and trenchcoat?).

I really enjoyed painting these. They are nice clean models and don't really need much work, but do need a simple palette, I think, to keep to the production values of 1930s science fiction films. I used red and old gold on the weapons to lift the overall appearance of the figures from being too drab.

Now, all I need are some stalwart defenders, ready to protect the Earth from the evil plans of these cruel alien invaders.

7TV; one of my 2020 projects gets going at last.

I first played 7TV a couple of years ago and decided that it was a game I could enjoy a lot. When Crooked Dice launched an upgraded version of the rules, I bought the box and I got a few starter sets of figures. Then, other things became more important and my 7TV project languished on the shelf. However, it was always my intention to get things moving this year, and when 7TV Pulp came out last Summer, I bought those rules too, seeing lots of possibilities for existing figures, as well as the chance to buy loads of lovely Bob Murch minis too!

So, without further ado, here are my first efforts. First, some female Minions;

Here is the Chief Minion together with two of her enforcers;

Next, a couple of Minions with SLRs;

And three with sub-machine guns;

Now, the Stars and Co-stars of my team;

The co-stars;

And the stars themselves;

The premise of 7TV is that the various teams (a.k.a. "casts") are based around TV programmes from the 1960s and 70s. I decided that my first cast would be for a glamorous high-budget secret agent series called "Antony and Cleopatra", featuring the dynamic duo of Jason Antony and Claudia "Foxy" Cleopatra. Together with their co-stars, the sisters Pandora and Petunia Perkins, they are the main assets of a secret government agency known only as Department X. They can call upon a variety of assistants ("extras") and the ones I have chosen to portray are a bunch of women security guards known as Althea's Amazons, led by the formidable Captain Althea Abercrombie.

Department X, clearly a forerunner of "The X-Files" is tasked with investigating any and all manifestations of occult, alien, weird science or otherwise inexplicable phenomena, and individuals and groups who may be involved in such goings-on.

Women with guns ............................

I recently painted up four female archaeologists for a Call of Cthulhu game at my wargames club and this gave me a taste for painting larger figures. Anyway, following on from the success of the previous game, we have another one planned for this weekend, a mash-up of Call of Cthulhu and A Very British Civil War.

A couple of weeks ago, I got started on some suitable figures and the first ones I painted up were these;

These (above) are six VBCW female militia figures from Ironclad Miniatures plus four female French Resistance figures from Dixon Miniatures WW2 range. This would give me a basic squad of ten for the game. However, I also needed an HQ group of five figures and my eye was drawn to the excellent Bad Squiddo range of female miniatures and the ones I really thought would work were the Dangerous Dames (2) set by Pulp Figures (below).

I wanted figures that I could use in other settings as well as just for this particular game and these are really nice models. 

It was my original concept for the VBCW setting that my figures would be part of an anti-government feminist revolutionary socialist militia and I think that the main group of ten work well for that particular concept. The other five are far more generally useful for different settings, especially Call of Cthulhu.

Anyway, they were good fun to paint and I am looking forward to seeing them on the table. I'll take a camera along to the game and hopefully do a bit of a write-up of the proceedings.