This is the year of getting all of those “detritus miniatures finished. Hopefully by the end of the year most of the figures not linked to any “projects” will either be completed or disposed of. Anyway here are some more:
Back to what I should be working on – finishing off the projects I had on the list to do. This time it is more work on Gotham City.
There is still a couple of ships and a dock crane to be completed for the Port to be finished. You will also see the Port billboard in the video below.
The two platforms, track, central ticket box, water tower and some crates have been completed. There are some signals, more track, a signal box and some rolling stock still to come.
For game purposes these are like sewers or tunnels. You enter one entrance and appear out the next.
I have also completed some Billboards which I have not taken any photos of, but they appear in the video below. The video and the photos above have been taken for a table that was set up for a game of our version of Batman (a sixties version with lots of Pow! Zap!) The game write up will appear in another blog.
No, not the 1953 (A vintage year I say) Rock Hudson and Yvonne De Carlo movie, but those monsters that first appeared in Dr Who way back in February 1972.
These are the first episodes that I remember watching of Dr Who, although I have since watched all of the earlier series.
Several ships have gone missing off the British coast, and the Doctor suspects an unnatural cause. Investigating an old sea fort at the epicentre of the disappearances, he comes face-to-face with the aquatic cousins of the Silurians, nicknamed Sea Devils. Like the Silurians, they have lain dormant for aeons in suspended animation, but have recently been awakened. But even as the Doctor starts to formulate a plan to achieve peace with the Sea Devil colony, the Master is plotting too. Having duped the governor of the prison where he is incarcerated, he now plans to help the Sea Devils destroy humanity.
Royal Navy archive footage, ships and sailors were used in the filming of these episodes. The models will provide some interesting ship board scenarios.
I planted myself on my couch at the beginning of March last year and I’ve grown significantly ever since.
Like my Grandpa jokes the “Terror of the Vervoids” has received a pretty bad wrap and I have to say I agree. If you can find a more mind numbing Dr Who script I don’t want to watch it. If you add the poor acting, average directing, and a new companion appearing without any introduction or back story is it any wonder you end up with rotten tomatoes.
In addition, to quote one reviewer, “There’s also the delicate matter of their physiognomy. I mean faced with plant-based life-forms that have particularly pink and, ah, stameny faces, nestling in a suggestive arrangement of petals, where is one supposed to look to avoid blushes? The groin?“
Was it any wonder that Dr Who was receiving poor ratings at the time.
Despite the scrip the concept of the Vervoids was pretty cool. The Vervoids were a type of artificially created humanoid plant. Created as a slave species by scientists, the Vervoids pined for freedom and eventually decided to destroy their human oppressors……the very model of a Whovian alien enemy!
The models are so great I cannot wait to get them on the table, oops I mean play with them, oops, well you know what I mean…….I hope.
I am just finalising washes, dry brushing, and basing on my Dr Who collection. Some different alien races and a few extra character figures will add some variety to our games.
All I am after now is some Gallifreyan Guard and Time Lords to finish off the collection, as Santa didn’t come to the party!
In the episode Love & Monsters, the mysterious Victor Kennedy gatecrashed a meeting of LINDA (London Investigation ‘N’ Detective Agency), encouraging them to focus on their goal of gathering information on the sightings of the Doctor.
In reality Victor Kennedy was an alien being in disguise. Hailing from Clom – the sister planet of the Slitheen’s own Raxacoricofallapatorius – the Abzorbaloff was capable of absorbing memories, consciousness and the physical bodies of victims by the merest touch.
As their new taskmaster exerted his influence, members of LINDA began to disappear one-by-one.
Kahler-Tek was originally from Gabrean on Kahler. He was one of many who were experimented on by Kahler-Jex and his team to create soldiers that would end the war their people were engaged in. Tek was transformed into a cybernetic war machine along with countless others who ended the war within a week. However, during that time Kahler-Tek was damaged in the field leading to the resurgence of his original personality. This meant he did not obey his pre-programmed instructions to deactivate after the war ended and began hunting down the scientists who experimented on him.
After many years he tracked the remaining two scientists to Earth. He found the first in the American desert who tried to appeal to his original nature but the cyborg executed him anyway.
Looks as if he would fit in at “West World” doesn’t he?
In New York, with brain-swapping aliens poised to attack, the Doctor and Nardole link up with an investigative reporter and a mysterious masked superhero known only as the Ghost. Can the Doctor save Manhattan? And what will be revealed when we see behind the mask? How a six year old child becomes the superhero is subject for another day.
Like the Doctor the renegade Time Lord known as the Master used many aliases including Professor Yana. However, while the Doctor used false names on a fairly ad hoc basis to avoid awkward questions, the Master usually adopted them in order to further whatever scheme they were embarked upon at the time. The one-sided love affair between the Master and the insectoid creature Chantho ends in dramatic fashion and leaves the Doctor, Martha, and Jack Harness stranded.
A 17th century stage coach robbery, an immortal, the Highwayman the “Knightmare” mistaken for Zorro, a robbery from a stately manor, all involving the Doctor and an ordinary Viking girl killed by an alien that he resurrects creates an interesting story line. Now as an immortal the Viking girl takes on a number of personas as she has forgotten her original identity. A number of these personas are modelled.
Tetraps looked like they were a cross between a human, bat, and boar. They were covered in brown fur, had sharp clawed hands and vestigial wing-flaps around their arms. They had four eyes, one in front, one on each side of the head, and one in back. They also had four ears, two facing forward and two back. Tetraps had a forked tongue which could inject a paralysing poison. They fed on plasma (called amsalp) and slept upside-down like bats.
They first appeared in 1987 in the first episode of the 24th Dr Who series “Time and Rani”.
The episode starts when the TARDIS is attacked by the Rani, an amoral scientist and renegade Time Lord. The TARDIS crash-lands on the planet Lakertya. On the floor of the console room, the 6th Doctor regenerates into the 7th Doctor. In his post-regenerative confusion the Doctor is separated from Mel and tricked into assisting the Rani in her megalomaniac scheme to construct a giant time manipulator.
Lost on the barren surface of the planet, Mel has to avoid the Rani’s ingenious traps and her monstrous, bat-like servants, the Tetraps. She joins forces with a rebel faction among the Lakertyans, desperate to end the Rani’s control of their planet. The Doctor must recover his wits in time to avoid becoming a permanent part of the Rani’s plan to collect the genius of the greatest scientific minds in the universe, of which she has captured many including Albert Einstein, in order that she can create a time manipulator, which would allow the Rani to control time anywhere in the universe, at the expense of all life on Lakertya.
The Doctor manages to foil her plan and free the Lakertyans of her evil control. The Rani escapes in her TARDIS, but it has been commandeered by the Tetraps, who take her prisoner. The Doctor takes all the captured geniuses on board his TARDIS so that he can return them home.
Crazy creatures, a crazy Time Lord, and a pile of crazy scientists together with a confused regenerating Doctor, what self respecting gamer could avoid adding these to their collection……….. well not me anyway!!!! These were picked up on one of the Warlord Miniatures buy 2 get one free sale a couple of years ago (I actually thought I was buying tyres!!).
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this blog may contain images, or names of deceased persons in photographs, or printed material.
I’d like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which I live and write today. I would also like to pay my respects to their Elders past and present.
Inspired by Faith & Steel’s recent book review blog I decided to share one of the best books I have read in a long time. I always have about a half a dozen books on my bedside table that I read and put down and read some more later, but this was read in one sitting, albeit into the wee small hours of the morning.
Late last year a mate of mine let me know about the existence of this book and I was able to pick it up from Book Depository for $35.00. As usual their price and delivery service were excellent.
A regular reader of this blog will know that despite gaming the “Australian Frontier Wars” we are appalled at the way that the British “savages” behaved towards the indigenous population of Australia. The savagery and systematic genocide that took place far exceeded that of the North American First nations on a population basis, and worst of all it has been erased from our history.
The proud American First Nation leaders are well known right across the world. Names of their great war leaders like Cochise, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Crazy Horse, Pontiac and Joseph Brant and the Great Nations of the Apache, Sioux, Navajo and Crow (just to name a few) are well known by most of us, even if it is only from the Cinema.
Indigenous Australian War Leaders such as Pemulwuy, Musquito, Windradyne, Yagan, Jandamarra, and Dundalli are totally unknown, and yet their struggle for their lands and the rights of their people were no less heroic and no less tragic. Likewise the names of their proud tribes such as the Gurndji, Jarijari, Pyemmairre or the Warkawarka are probably only known to their descendants.
Only recently has researched been conducted into this shameful period of Australian history and only now is the true story is being told.
Time to get off the soap box and back to the review.
The Sydney Wars tells the history of military engagements between Europeans and Aboriginal Australians – described as ‘this constant sort of war’ by one early colonist – around the greater Sydney region.
Telling the story of the first years of colonial Sydney in a new and original way, this provocative book is the first detailed account of the warfare that occurred across the Sydney region from the arrival of a British expedition in 1788 to the last recorded conflict in the area in 1817. The Sydney Wars sheds new light on how British and Aboriginal forces developed military tactics and how the violence played out.
Analysing the paramilitary roles of settlers and convicts and the militia defensive systems that were deployed, it shows that white settlers lived in fear, while Indigenous people fought back as their land and resources were taken away. Stephen Gapps details the violent conflict that formed part of a long period of colonial strategic efforts to secure the Sydney basin and, in time, the rest of the continent.
Additional reading:
Forgotten War. By Henry Reynolds
“Warrior” by Libby Connor
“The Black War” by Nicholas Clements
“The Other Side of the Frontier” by Henry Reynolds
“The Secret War” by Jonathan Richards
“Frontier History Revisited” Robert Orsted-jensen
“Conspiracy of Silence” by Timothy Bottoms
“Denny Day” by Terry Smyth
I can really recommend “Denny Day” who was a New South Wales police officer that brought the first white men to justice for murdering indigenous people, and “Warrior” that is about the war leader Dundalli.
One of the objectives for this year was to finish of my “Gotham” city buildings and terrain pieces. This is the start of quite a large project. I have a freeway overpass, a tug, container ship and steam crane on railway tracks for the port, and the railway station and train carriages for the rail yard to complete. The containers will suit all three sections of the city.
The containers are from “JB Wargaming Scenery” and were obtained from their Ebay store. They are really cheap and come in a variety of sizes. I chose the 6 pack of medium containers and the 10 pack of small ones. The sell for a total of about £10.50 each.
I can see that you all have had difficulty “containing” your excitement so just a heads up that I have about ten minor projects all awaiting final touches that you will see over the next week.
“In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them….maybe you can hire …………………………………………………………………….The A-Team.“
When the kids were growing up the “A-Team” was one of those shows we watched together. So much so that a very dear and now departed kitten was named “Mr T”.
2021 is a year during which I want to complete a few large projects and just “mop up” figures that have been around since Methuselah (my “friends” think he was a great mate of mine).
“Barca and the boys” from studio miniatures are one such set that will fit in with our post apocalyptic games very well.
All I need to do now is to find a suitable figure for “Triple A” – Amy Amanda Allen!
Wargames Foundry do have a “B Team” that includes a “Triple A” figure, but with the exception of their Mr Z the sculpts are pretty average compared with the Studio Miniatures ones.