Six female Pulp figures

These are all 28mm figures from Bad Squiddo;

Those of you who read this blog regularly will recognise that I've used the same setting as in my previous post. Well, what can I say? I already had the lightbox set up so why not take advantage of it? I did use a different Jon Hodgson backdrop, though.

These six will work for all kinds of Pulp games, including Eldritch Horror and also for VBCW. As usual, they are lovely clean casts and a joy to paint.

I've got a lot more stuff in varying degrees of completion, so it is now just a case of actually finishing them off and not giving in to starting other figures instead!

Bad Squiddo Women of WW2 - Women of the Home Front

 I've been powering through my next group of Bad Squiddo Home Front figures over the weekend. 

These women are clearly ready to repel any Nuns in Jackboots who might suddenly appear on the scene or round up any shot-down Luftwaffe aircrew. Pointy sharp things on sticks predominate but the two ladies at the back are ready to provide fire support (and a nice cup of tea) whenever called upon.

These were good fun to paint. I decided on mostly simple colours for their clothes, after all there is a war on! I see the woman in the centre as Mrs Hardy, the local school's Headmistress and the organiser of the women's volunteers, a local force to do whatever might be required in an emergency.

Peggy, on the left owns the local dress shop, Doris, with the rifle is the village GP's receptionist and Edna (with the revolver) and Mary are farmer's wives.

The volunteers are obviously going to work alongside the local Land Girls to keep the area safe.

I'll definitely be using these for some "What If?" Home Front Chain of Command games when things get back to normal, but they will be equally useful for things like VBCW, Pulp and Cthulhu Mythos-themed games.

Women's Militia Lewis Gun team

A couple of years ago, I started to create a Women's Militia for VBCW, that might also work for Home Front imaginary scenarios for WW2. Once I'd done the original figures, here, I bought a Lewis Gun team from Ironclad Miniatures, and then put the figures away and forgot about them, mostly due to other things taking prominence in my To Do painting list.

Of course, I now have no excuses, because I have no painting deadlines that are more pressing, so I am painting things just because I want to paint them.

I've tried to keep them as similar as possible to the originals I painted back in 2017. I hope that I have succeeded. I even put them on 2cm bases, instead of the 2.5cm bases I use more frequently nowadays.

Bad Squiddo Land Girls

I bought these five Bad Squiddo Land Girl figures ages ago, but, as is the way of things, they slipped down the list of Things To Paint. Now, with the completion of Annie's Women of WW2 Home Front Kickstarter, I felt that I really needed to get them painted.

Officially the Women's Land Army, the Land Girls freed up men to serve in the Armed Forces and the total number of women who either volunteered or were conscripted into the WLA was around 80,000.

These are really lovely Alan Marsh sculpts, quite chunky but very much in keeping with the majority of the Bad Squiddo range. Sizewise they are similar to the glorious Shieldmaidens, also sculpted by Alan Marsh. As usual with Bad Squiddo figures they are an absolute joy to paint.

I am now one small step nearer to my ambition of mounting a multiplayer "Went The Day Well?" game. Of course, they will also be perfect for Operation Sealion games and probably for VBCW games too.

Bad Squiddo female Soviet soldiers

First, a confession. I've had these figures for ages, I started painting them at least a year ago and then left them, mainly because other things took over, but also because I didn't really have any urgent reason to finish them off.

However, after paining up a dozen Renaissance gendarmes, I wanted a change before getting stuck into more Renaissance mounted figures, so, I dug them out and finished them off.

First, there is a Rifle section, with a Degtyaryov DP-27 LMG team, six soldiers with Mosin-Nagant rifles, two with PPSh-41 SMGs, an officer and a Commissar wearing a blue skirt), both equipped with pistols.

I deliberately chose to paint the figures in a mixture of uniforms. From what I have read, there was a fair amount of variation in the uniforms of the Red army, due to the use of different factories, different dyes and different fabrics, so it seemed to me that it was worth reflecting those variations in my Soviet women soldiers.

My next section is a scout unit, wearing camouflage.

There is another Degtyaryov DP-27 LMG team, a sniper and spotter team, a radio operator and map reader, and the section leader, equipped with a PPSh-41 SMG.

So, they are finally finished. I am still wondering what I will use them for, but perhaps they could be deployed to fight the Fascist menace in a game of VBCW, supporting my Women's Militia?

What I bought at Reveille

I really meant to post this last week but, mea culpa, I forgot!

Anyway here is my haul of goodies and shinies. First off, here are some figures from Annie at Bad Squiddo, including the new Lizard Woman for Frostgrave Archipelago, who I don't think is on the website yet, and the excellent Land Girls with shotguns.

I bought a Saddle Goose dice bag/token bag from Glenbrook Games (no artificial giraffes were harmed in the manufacturing of this bag).

I bought various dice (we always need dice, surely?). The gold, silver and bronze 8- and 10-sided ones are from Magister Militum and the rest are from Annie's bargain bins. 

I bought a female Lewis Gun team from Ironclad Miniatures' VBCW range.

I also bought some 15mm wizards and some gravestones from Magister Militum, for a couple of new projects (of which more will follow in due course).

In these bags are some new resin and metal sci fi vehicles for another project (a new ASQL army). They are new items from The Scene but they aren't on their website at the moment. They are very nice, as are the vehicles which are there. I may have to buy more. I do like what The Scene is doing with these vehicles. They are very nice and have lots of possibilities.

And finally, and no, I am not doing a Star Wars project, I bought these two flyers from fellow club member John Curry. These will get a paint makeover and be reincarnated as distant flyers for a future ASQL army.

Not a bad haul, really, and lots of painting ahead of me.

Possible Infantry for VBCW.

A few days ago, I posted about the Tabletop Sale at the club, ending the post with a picture of the odds and ends that I picked up.

So far, I've only assembled the plastic figures and undercoated them, because I have been working on the ten metal ones, the Renegade Miniatures WW1 Scottish infantry.

As I wrote previously, I don't intend them to be used as WW1 Scots at all. My idea is to use them for VBCW and other games, such as Call of Cthulhu and 7TV.

To make them look a bit more not-Scottish, I decided to give them green bands on their Glengarry bonnets, but apart from that, they have been given fairly standard-looking uniforms and equipment. As well as the green trim on the Glengarries, I've also given the troops green shoulder tabs. The squad leader actually has a slightly different appearance to the rest of the squad, his bonnet is of a more formal style, with a cap badge and longer tails, so, I painted it completely green. I've also given him green and yellow collar tabs. I intend these to look like rank markings, rather than just give him standard stripes on the arms of his service tunic. After all, this is some faction's private army, not a squad of regulars.

Anyway, I think that they have come up rather nicely and I might have to think about some more senior chaps and maybe a Lewis Gun team, but these will do for now.

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.