Tuesday 24 December 2019

Merry Christmas one and all!

We here at the Brummie's  would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. I hope you all have a fab time with your loved ones.







Thursday 19 December 2019

Crooked Dice Lawmen with Shotguns

I have painted up some more cops this week to boost my numbers for my LAPD Police Force. This gives me a total of 8 officers and a Sergeant. I have been looking up where a lot of those classic films have been set from the 80's and was quite surprised how many were set in Los Angeles.




So having already got Riggs, Murtaugh and Axel Foley done earlier in the year I plan to get some characters for Die Hard and Predator 2 and recently saw some new additions to Studio Miniatures Survivor range which I ordered. Then I also realised Terminator was set in LA also so that is another future plan. The cops can at least then fulfil multiple roles as extras. Annoyingly adding them I have 9 in total which works out at 15 Ratings but I need more Sergeants to lead them. I may pick up the handguns set. But also have the M16 armed cops which I plan to paint up as Swat!





Tuesday 17 December 2019

Alpha Squad Animal Companion Timber

A quick paint job on this one to get it off the lead pile its been sitting primed read to go for ages. Snake Eyes the action figure came with a wolf called Timber and in the comics helps him fight off a huge Polar Bear in the Arctic. 

This wolf is from the now OOP Leading Edge from one of the Bram Stoker's Dracula miniature sets. Originally I picked this miniature and another off Ebay to use for Empire of the Dead but found them to small to mix with the other wolves at the time. However it scales perfectly with my Gi Joe scaled figures the other has been donated to someone else's Joe cause.







Tuesday 10 December 2019

Alpha Squad

Quite randomly painting items at the moment. No particular theme in mind only that I feel like painting them.

I dug out some figures from my Joe project as I fancied doing something military lowland managed to chip away at the pile i had assembled and primed. 

These have been work on over the past two weeks but due to work and busy family weekends only just gotten around to getting good weather to try and get some pics.

First up is the Joe called Ripcord. This is a conversion using a Crooked Dice Minion, co models head and backpack (which I trimmed to get the reserve chute on his belly) and some tubing and a bit of putty for mask.




 Next up is Flint this is a spare casting from a private collection.


 Another from the private collection this time Duke at first I wasn't sure about the pose but after painting him feel much better about him.

 Another conversion this time I made Tunnel Rat. The body is from the Studio Miniatures Spec Ops team, the head is from a reaper mini I had and then I added a scarf to cover the join but this also matches the action figure.


The four new Joe's ready for deployment. I have a 7TV event in January and may take my Joe's as Stand ins for Department X as I can't seem to settle on a new cast for it and time is ticking away.

It's at Board in Brum in Walsall and is on Saturday 25th January.

Thursday 28 November 2019

Jane of the Jungle and Faustus

Been a bit a random painting wise the past week or so. Mainly been trying to pick up bits and get stuff finished depending on the mood. The weather has been pants for taking pictures but braved the rain today and got some pictures of some of the figures I've got finished off.

First up is Jane of the Jungle (Jungle Paragon by Crooked Dice) start of my first Heroic Cast for Pulp. I am very much looking forward to the Menagerie which will have a ton of animals, creatures and monsters added to the Pulp version of 7TV. The bases have been left plain for now. I couldn't make my mind up on what tufts to add or whether to get some different ones. Ones I have more models for the cast I think I will get them all done together.




 Loyal animal companion Faustus the Lion (Wargames Foundry)




Taking of the Menagerie of Terror its currently available to pre order via the currently running Pulp Sci Fi Kickstarter by Crooked Dice. Its end Monday!

Pulp Sci Fi Kickstarter





The Currently Unlocked Stretch Goals. The Objectives are free with any pledges £30 and above. The Menagerie is an add on for £15






Monday 25 November 2019

The 7TV Open University event.

So Sunday 17th November saw me drive up to the Darley Dales club for their second 7TV day event of the year. Very kindly organised by James Aldridge, Colin Alcock and Dave Matthews. Again at the fabulous Whitworth Centre in Matlock  Bath. 

The day was scheduled  to play 3 games of 7TV with casts of 40 Ratings chosen from Spy Fi,, Apocalypse and the Pulp sets (excluding Apocalypse vehicles). Terrain and boards were supplied by James and the club. I also brought along my own Apocalypse Board for people to use. A last minute surge of new players meant casts were made available very kindly by James for people to borrow.

The boards available to game on the day.







The various 40 Rating cast for people to use. James was super organised and printed out cards and supplied sheets with who was who and how many gadget cards plot points etc being generated. Very clever that man!










I was using my 40 Rating Gangster cast I showed in my previous post boosted by the Femme Fatale Genevieve and a couple more mobsters.

Don Quintonelli and his gang.





Game 1
Was against Pete who had played only a couple of times. Veterans were split up with the new guys to show them the ropes. Pete was using the Cobra Cast supplied by James. The episode was The Battle but with a slight twist that when picking up objectives certain bonuses or negatives were given such as ending your turn, gaining extra plot points of an extra victory point.


Cobra Commander, Baroness, Major Bludd and some masked soldiers form up the force the large robot (plaston profile I believe)

Most the objectives were spread out across the centre of the board.

The gangsters surge forward with Don Quintoelli grabbing an objective (which gave up 2 vp's)

The Cobra Forces advance up the left flank. Cobra Commander searched the vehicle and found an objective but this unfortunately ended his turn on screen. Stealing the scene the Cobra forces continued their advance


The scene is stolen and the Cobra forces charge forward. Major Bludd and his soldier gun down Officer Murphy. Whilst the Baroness sprinted forward stealing an objective from under Genevieve's nose!

Genevieve proved to be exceptionally deadly distracting the baroness before gunning her down without mercy!

Don Quintonelli's shouted out for his boys to fill em full of lead and the small squad of Cobra Soldiers are gunned down the Tommy guns of his triggermen.


A bit of dodgy editing witches places between a mobster and a Cobra Soldier who then begins beating up Cobra Commander. Genevieve saunters over and captures the commander with her beauty and beguiling ways ending the game.

I was very lucky with my dice rolls and they were high when I need them to be and Pete's weren't. It was a 13-3 victory to the Don. We quickly reset the board and the tables were turned resulting in a 10-2 loss goes to show how much of an impact different cards and better dice rolls can affect the outcome! Little Luigi managed to capture Major Bludd and a cobra Soldier but was sorely wounded and was later gunned down in this game. Genevieve was Sniper off a building by soldiers. The mobsters where gunned down in a hail of smg fire.


Game 2
This was againsy Colin and Criminial gang. A thug off as we called it. Colin had an Underworld Boss, a gang of Thugs, A Gang of criminals and double agent. We played on my own Post Apoc board. We played the race with the directors cut rules meaning that when we turned over two countdown cards and collected an objective on a 5+ the objective became the maguffin (worth 1D6 VP's)

Colin's gang spreads itself out with the objectives again mostly around the centre sections of the board.
The Don's gang spreads itself out with the Genevieve and Officer Murphy sneaking forward ready to grab objectives.

Colin's Criminal Gang

Both sides advanced cautiously both the girls
nabbing an objective each. A Shootout between the Don and the Mobsters and Colin's Thug gang results in most of the Thugs being gunned down in a hail of lead. An explosion knocks down a bunch of the mobsters and the mercilessly gunned down in a hail of shotgun pellets. The Tommy gunners pick off a few more Criminals and Colin's boss sneaked off to fight another day.

Another really lucky game with dice rolls for me. Unfortunately I axed Colin's gang and when he failed his Ax test rolled high enough for the remaining gang members to leave the game.

10-2 I think was the results for this game. We managed to collect all the objectives between us (3 to me 2 to Colin) but none turned out to be the Maguffin. But with his cast being removed from play and the VP's it gave off boosted the score in my favour. My Dice were on fire again with rolling high when I need to.

Game 3
Final game of the day and this one was against Nick who was borrowing a cast from James. Don Quintonelli was facing the Third Doctor and the Brigadier and we were both trying to persuade a Scientist to join our side (this game had objectives as normal but also there was a VIP who we had to persuade to leave our table edge. It was quite a cool idea. You had to get a model in base to base with the Scientist then pass a mind test to get them to move 6 inches in the direction of your choice. If you failed then they moved off 6 inches in a random direction!
The Table
The Scientist in the centre of the board.
The Doctor and Brigadier split their forces evenly between them.

With  the terrain being blocked by the large building the Don massed his gang in the centre. 
Officer Murpy and Genivieve sneak forwards and plan to grab objectives under the Doctors Nose and to sneak into the church and grab the Scientist (fortunately my Femm Fatale had the best mind in my cast).

The Third Doctor, Brigadier and Benton.

I was very lucky I managed to get to the Scientist on Turn 2 and persuade her to follow Genevieve. The Mob advanced forward and took up cover behind the Police cars. A Random Explosion knocked down the soldiers following the Doctor and where gunned down in a haild of lead from my Tommy Gun's. Officer Murphy managed to snag an objective in the barn from under the Brigadiers nose. Despite being sorely wounded by one of the soldiers he managed to hold out in a brawl with his nightstick subduing two of the soldiers with his night stick. The mobsters snag a few more objectives whislt the Scientist dithers backwards and forwards sometimes under the direction of Genevieve and sometimes not (Yes I rolled a few ones for persuasion) Little Luigi let off a smoke bomb blocking the alleyway and pereventing the Brigadier and his men fomr allowing the Scientist. Little Luigi then charge forward capturing the Brigadier and another Soldier. The Doctor then retreated to save the remaining soldier and Scientist from Harm. (Nick failed his Ax test)

This was another big victory for the Don. I managed to grab 4 objectives out of 5, Genevieve controlled the scientist most of the game and as the Brigadier was Captured he counted as being removed from play. Resulting in a bit of landslide victory points wise ending in it being 11 something to none.

I can't decide if the cast I took was overpowered or if it was just pure luck with the wins I had on the day. The second game and defeat against Pete makes me think perhaps I was just lucky. At any rate I shall retire the Don for a bit.

The next 7TV Day is planned for January/February this time again at Board In Brum. I am not sure what to take to this one. I want to take a new cast to it and encourage me to get some more stuff painted for it.

Little Luigi snagg