Fruits of the Kickstarter - Soviet Women of WW2

 

Today I got delivery of the first Kickstarter I've backed in ages (over two years?).  This one was Women of WW2: Soviet Russia from Bad Squiddo Games, which finished on 15 April and in true Bad Squiddo fashion is being fulfiled quickly and promptly.

The purple box of delights

WW2 isn't really my thing, so I did a very small pledge - a token of support really - chosing some items that would fit in with my Pulp theme.  As a result, I've got four figures, lovely sclupts by Alan Marsh, very crisply and cleanly cast.

Nightwitches

Sniper team

Shiny! Gunfighters

It's a long time since I did a post about new minis!  That's because it's a long time since I bought any.

For many people, the enforced leisure time Lockdown gave us was a chance to put brush to paint to lead/plastic.  Not for me.  I don't think I've painted a mini for almost 18 months.  In part, that's because of the domestic upheaval of moving into a new house (which doesn't have the great natural light I used to have), but also because my 'hobby time' has taken a new direction and I've been mainly playing RPGs with theatre of the mind.  I'm hoping that some new arrivals might get me back to the paint table.

But when Bad Squiddo announced that they were going to be stocking the new Gunfighters set from Great Escape Games, I couldn't resist and signed up for a pre-order.  With commendable efficiency, the box was delivered to me yesterday, the official lauch date.

I'm not sure what I'll do with them, but I watched lots of Saturday afternoon Westerns as a kid, and couldn't resist.  And of course, being kits, they're adaptable.  Everyone loves Gunfighters in Space don't they?

So what do you get?  Two identical sprues, with enough bits to make ten 28mm minis (and have all sorts of bits left over).

I'm not one of those people who can look at a sprue and comment on the figures (a lack a visual awareness, I suppose).  The first thing to say is that I don't see the parts to make some of the characters from the splendid box art.  Well, these things always have some artistic licence.

One the back of the box, however, there is an indication of how some of them might turn out.

I don't have much experience of Great Escape Games' sculpts.  I remember being very disappointed back in 2014 with their group of three casualties: - two of them looked as if they'd meet their ends under a steam roller.  The fourth, however, was very charactful and ended up being a joy to paint.  I'm hoping I might be able to recapture some of that. 

Some of my best work

And looking at that post from 2014 reminds me that I've still got some of the Old West figures from Artizan to paint.  They're always fun.

More Shiny!

On the whole I behaved myself during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday nonsense.  I bought a few things on DriveThruRPG.com.  But I also took advantage of the sale at Hasslefree Minis to pick up some extra figures.

Nothing exciting, a couple more female figures, a dwarf and an elf (he didn't come with a label - he's HFE007 - Ceril "Brooding Elf Lord").  I'm not keen on metal figures that require assembly, but that's down to my own inadequacy rather than anything else!

I think the pictures speak for themselves.  All nice sculpts as you'd expect from Hasslefree: Henn of Gar is by Tre Manor, the rest by Kev White.

Parcels!

I got a couple of parcels today!  Kay-Karoo!

First up was the fruit of another Kickstarter, this one The Baron's War by Paul Hicks and Andy Hobday (and Footsore Miniatures), which was to produce minis of C13th knights and men-at-arms.  I only signed up in a minor way.

And I'm very pleased with the results.  Everything was on time and communication throughout the KS was exemplary.  There's a fair bit of flash on the minis (oh, how we are spoiled these days!), but they are lovely sculpts and worth seeking out.

I think one of the aims of the KS was to test the market for a range of C13th figures.  It was a big success, and there should be more coming (and, I understand, a rule-set).

And, secondly...

The other parcel was a care packet from one of my sisters.  Bless!

Spacemen and Space Monsters

Back on Saturday I posted that I had just ordered some of Cold War Minis astronauts (to me, these are definitely Spacemen, and that's how they will be referred to from now on!  I don't know what the gender-neutral version of Spacemen is.)

Well they arrived this morning (it's Wednesday), and are rather nice.

Looking at them, it strikes me that they might make a good match for Statuesque Miniatures Statuesque Starport range.  Those may end up next on the shopping list...

And by a stroke a serendipity, this morning I spotted some suitable Alien Opponents in the charity shop.  Great, eh?

And yes, I do know the story of the origins of the Rust Monster et al.

Shopping

I wandered into the City yesterday and managed to pick up a couple of things.  Nothing special, but it's a long time since I bought any figures...

First up, I picked up my pre-ordered copy of the Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed starter set.  As I said in my ramble the other night, I've been feeling pulpy.

Hopefully I'll give it a go over the next few days.

I also popped into one of the shops that sells secondhand gaming stuff and picked up these

Anything by Pulp Figures is worth getting at less than half-price, so that was a no-brainer; the West Wind Arthurian figures (not a range I knew they did) will come in for D&D.

Also, spotted this morning on Facebook thanks to Christopher Sheets, is the fact that Cold War Miniatures have a half-price sale on some rather nice astronauts.  So I've ordered some of them.  At 32mm, they may be a bit large. but we'll see.

It's not a company I was aware of before.  They have a good range of Not Flash Gordon figures (with Mong's Men just in pre-order) and zombies.  I shall keep an eye on them.

Pulpy Shinies from Bad Squiddo

Bad Squiddo Games has just announce a couple of new releases sculpted by Paul Muller that scream out"Pulp!".  And I'm a sucker for Pulp...
 

These are available at the pre-order price of £7.50 for the pair (normal price £8.00).  They won't be shipped for a fortnight.

As some of you know, Bad Squiddo is very much a one-person shop.  As anyone who has tried to run a business on their own knows, such businesses are even more at the mercy of Real Life than others.  Earlier this year, Annie had to make an unexpected move from Cardiff to Nottingham, finding new premises and shifting stock etc.  This coincided with the planned dispatch of her latest Kickstarter, which was well and truly effed-up.  That led to a backlog of orders, a huge backlog of e-mail (many of them negative).  Given that Annie has moved away from her support network and the part-time staff she had, this all fell on her shoulders: her health has suffered. 

The other problem caused by these backlogs is one of cashflow - fatal to small businesses.  Despite that, Annie made the decision not to release anything from her new releases queue until she could promise dispatch withing a reasonable period.  Annie is a good sort.  If her stuff appeals to you, I urge you to put an order in and help her out.

November Loot

For various reasons I won't go into now, November was a complete write-off hobby-wise.  I've just checked and it was one of only two months since August 2012 when I haven't even made a single blog post.  But I'm not here to beat myself up about it...

With the prep underway for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge 'Ate, hopefully this will change, but I thought I'd start the ball rolling with the old stalwart - 'What I've Bought Recently'.  As regular readers will know, I don't spend much money on hobbies, so it's not a large haul.

With the relative successes of Zomtober and 'Go Sober!' I thought I'd treat myself to some of the money the latter saved me so went out and got me a survivor's gang.

These, of course, are Hasslefree Miniatures post-apoc version of Mystery Inc - hopefully should be fun to paint. 

While in this self-congratulatory mood I also treated myself to David Manley's White Bear, Red Sun - his mini campaign covering the Russo-Japanese War, which I blogged about when they were published back in early October. 

Since then, Topside Minis have released their Tsushima range and David announced yesterday that his supplement covering the naval side of the Spanish American War is now available.  Both are high on my list for my next splurge of retail therapy.

For some years now Bob Murch at Pulp Figures has been producing a figure to raise money for Movember (his giving page is still open).  For the first time these have been easily available in the UK , with North Star carrying masses of Bob's ranges, so I took the opportunity to pick up previous years' figures (this year's didn't appeal to me).  As you can see, these are really great figures, full of character.

Misc Stuff

28mm  mini for scale

A really lucky find was this semi-flat Doughboy that I picked up very cheaply in a charity shop.

Yesterday, I went for a mooch around some of the 'antique' shops in town (as a antidote to Christmas shopping).  I was lucky enough to find this:-

Seems to be complete...

For those interested, the write-up on BoardGame Geek can be seen here.  A few months ago I'd seen a copy of L'Attaque, the land equivalent, and had been half kicking myself for not picking one up. 

New Stuff

This week has been another poor one as far as the hobby mojo goes.  I have done absolutely no painting, so it looks as if I will miss this weekend's (and final) bonus round in the AHPC.  This is particularly annoying, as I had wanted to submit for each bonus round, I'd bought something specially with this one in mind, and that both my Curtgeld and my normal run of Dr Who figures would have fitted in with the theme (character of scene from a book, movie or tv).

I have some excuse though - I've pulled a muscle in my back (moving books, naturally) and thus spent a day in bed, and the rest of my time feeling extremely sorry for myself.

However, nice Mr Postman did bring some consolation.

Some of you may remember that back in November 2016 I backed the Midlam Miniatures' Cult of the Kraken Lord Kickstarter.  Well, like the previous Midlam Kickstarter I back, these were delivered spot on time.

The Shrine awaits

The Cult arrives..

Jolly nice artwork

I'm been given some thought to my lack of hobby mojo and have come to the conclusion that, much as I enjoy painting figures, it is quite disheartening that I so rarely get to play with them.  I'm going to therefore make a concerted effort to get some solo playing in ("I used to play with myself all the time!").

So I was looking for something simple, fairly self-contained that wasn't too expensive and which was suited to solo play.  Warlord Games let you download the rules of Project Z for free and they seem to meet the above criteria.  And at the moment if you buy the core box, you get an expansion pack for free (£45.00's worth of game for £30.00).  So I watched a couple of YouTube videost and decided it was a good deal.

When I came home this afternoon I found the Red Card of Frustration.  Fortunately, in our case it means that the parcel in in the woodpile, so here we are-

As you see, you get a fair bit in the core box, but for Solo play I reckon you need extra Zombies, so for my free box I chose them rather than more survivors.

Sadly, the core set that was sent to me contained the rules and cards in German.  I see that this has happened to other people and been resolved quickly, so have every confidence that Warlord will sort it out.  I've sent an e-mail and will update you on the results.

But don't worry, I've not sworn off Pulp and Classic Sci-Fi, so stay tuned!

More Charity Shop Finds (Pt 1)

I've not posted for a while, so thought I would do one of the no-thought-required posts on my recent purchases from charity shops.  I'd done all the photos, but still couldn't get the post written.  Then, yesterday, I found something remarkable in a charity shop...

So, here are recent finds.  First, books (in order of pulpiness).

It turns out that I already have the Poe, but what the hell - this is a nice edition!

I read a lot of Solzhenitsyn in the 80s (like you do when you're in the sixth form).  These are stories he wrote after the fall of communism and his return to Mother Russia.

I thought I already had this, but don't.  You can't beat Conan Doyle!  If you don't know his non-Sherlock Holmes stories, you must read them - especially his speculative fiction.  The Brigadier Gerrard stories are funny ones.

His and Her's

One of these hats was bought new on the internet.  The other was bought in a charity shop and cost a tenth of the price.  Can you tell which is which?

Tomorrow I will tell you about the amazing purchases I made yesterday (and about the Ones that Got Away!).

Dr Who Wednesday #17

By a pleasing coincidence this Dr Who Wednesday falls on the 53rd anniversary of the first broadcast of the show.  

I should have something interesting and erudite to say about it all, but frankly I haven't the energy to write anything sensible.  Instead, I'll point you to BBCAmerica Doctor Who's-Day round-up - a blatant rip-our of our own dear Dr Who Wednesday.

Shiny!

After last week's lament that Crooked Dice's Not-Doctor-Who range had be pull from the shelves before I'd managed to stock up, I managed to pick up three of the companions.

Now, I know a couple of my readers don't approve of Capt Jack or the Paternoster Gang for introducing sexuality to the programme, but that ship sailed once they started allowing snogging in the TARDIS.  Personally, I find Capt Jack a great character.  I enjoyed Torchwood greatly before it got too dark in the last two seasons.  I have my reservations about how Sontarans are now portrayed as comedy characters rather than menacing ones, but I must admit that Strax is written and acted very amusingly.

Gratuitous Sarah-Jane Smith photo