M is for Matters Arising!

Well, I've pulled the last big post, which happens to be one of the posts pulled last year! The other was the Premium Pirates, so very convenient that Kent moved first! I'm not pulling it because I've run out of time or got flue, but because I couldn't be arsed to finish it off this afternoon, went and did other things and am now looking forward to a late chicken stew which will take 'till midnight (needs deboning), if I get this out quick!

And what this is, are a few shots I took as a sort of follow-up a couple of hours ago while I was round at the flat getting the tins of chicken soup and mushrooms for the base of the stew!

 

The yellow one here is the Webb's Supertoy pirate one, but I've had several of the pink ones from Peter Evans, and while I suspect something more 'princessy', the figure makes a good period C18th lady-pirate, or pirate's moll, and an ID would be nice, the embarrassment may be that she's on the blog in one of those pinky-mauve sets from 99p Stores or Poundland around ten-years ago! Anyone recognise these pink ladies?

Having waited years, over a decade to get a full set of these (finally managed a year or so ago), five came along at once - the Supreme / SP undead pirates!

 

I mentioned the likely compatibility, and you can see here the eight Crazy Pirates from New Zealand and Aussie-landia (there was a Peruvian issue too), do fit in well with the other set of twenty, so even more fun, pity nobody knew that in 1970! Many thanks to Glen again for those.

 

Comparison between the PVC-alike production of Papo (50mm), Plastoy (45mm) and the Pirateology game-piece figure (40mm), all a bit 'ish, but all out there now, and relatively affordable!

 

This (Supreme for Halsall - now HTI) should have been covered in the ITLAPD into' post last year or the year before, but a loose boat came in, and I had the spare figure here, so posed them both together!

 

And that's it for this year, much gratitude to everyone who's helped and/or contributed; Brian Berke, Peter Evans, Glen Sibbald, Chris Smith, John Begg, Jon Attwood, and you, if I've failed to mention you . . . no, not YOU, you ate all the biscuits and wandered off, I'm not even inviting you next year.

Ah'haaarrrrr mee arrty felloows! Until next yearrr, may the wind get behind yerrr sails and yerrr mast stay up! Ooo-urrh missus!

P is for Pirateology!

Having mentioned the possibility that the two smaller figures in the round-up might be from a board-game, I can tell you only that it isn't Pirateology, because that's here, right now, and it has different figures!

I thought we'd had the Dragonology set, posted up here, but looking for it just now, quickly realised it's still in the long-queue! Nevertheless, this is a sister game, Pirateology (presumably 'the study and understanding of pirates and piratey things!), from Sababa Toys (via Esdevium Games (Paul Lamond)), and it's a game . . . with pirates!

 

Based on a series of books by Dugald Steer and Nghiem Ta, it followed the Dragonology, Egyptology and Wizardology books, and has since been joined by Oceanology and Monstrology! I'm not going to pretend to know anything about them beyond the fact that clearly a franchise has been born!

 

Skull dice and coins which have gone in the spares pile for future . . . God knows what? But the little PVC-effect micro-pirate ships are rather lovely and will join the Galoob vessels in the relevant drawer of the little cabinet, we looked at a while ago.

 

The rest then went to recycling, I just haven't got the space, and would likely never have played the game, the capitalist, consumption-driven system produces mountains of this stuff, and I just waited for one going cheap (£5.99'ish), to get the figures.

 

And this is they; the meat & four veg'! About 35/40mm, quite well painted and a couple of obvious specifics; a China Sea pirate and a Berber/Barbary/Ottoman Corsair, they are really nice for board-game figures, but you'd have to be careful, as it's all in the base-colour as to who's 'marker' is who's! They seem to tie-in to the coloured banners and flags/pennants on the ships.

C is for Captain Morgan's Cut Throat Crew!

These are current, or at least still available, the card is over 12-years old, which is why I didn't de-card them, nor will I bother with much blurb, as you can see them all, beautifully painted, on the company's website!

As purchased, I can't remember if they were an expensive 'impulse' purchase at a War Gaming show, something cheap under the table at a Toy Soldier show, or came-in with a mixed lot at some point, I may even have paid full at the old Esdevium Games shop in Aldershot, years ago? But they're here now!

That's them; Foundry Miniatures Cut2/CUT012, a nice, slightly chunky whitemetal pirate crew, all I need is a 1:60th ['ish] ship and Cap'n Morgan's your uncle!

T is for Toy Fair '18 - Esdevium Games . . . Not!

My local games company has changed its name! It's now Asmodee, and they have (or carry) several games with figures in, none were on display at the show though so I'm only showing you catalogue scans in this post, but worth the read if you're not a dedicated follower of these things.

Catan is a popular game, although - I think I'm right in saying - normally the generic or 'original' sets have wooden counters? This Game of Thrones version from Fantasy Flight Games however, has some little figural game pieces which I think are around a 15mm War-gaming compatible size?

From the same 'GoT' trope comes A Song of Fire & Ice, a joint project between CMON Ltd., and Dark Sword Miniatures, and what nice looking miniatures they are. I'm guessing here that expansion packs and extra-figures are the hook?

As well as board games, Asmodee also import a lot of the blind-bag Moshling type stuff (post's half-done, just on the back burner) and more traditional game and pastimes. They also ship-in the Heroclix figure packs from WizKids with Star Trek and DC-licensed blisters illustrated here.

While these may well be more akin to Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars range? New for this year and another one to build-on with extra sets I suspect, Fantasy Flight again, but all these are 'Asmodee' in the UK.

This looks lovely, a kind of Steampunk, Golden Compass, World War One-and-a-Half, Russian Revolution in a box! The woman with a big-cat and the armoured bear are taken straight from the Golden Compass!

Which reminds me, I finally watched the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen the other day, several extraordinary ladies - as it happens - but I found it to be very disappointing, with huge plot holes/continuity errors and an overall feel of wasted-opportunity, almost as if three unrelated, shorter, films had been stiched-together with a blunderbuss full of nails!

But back to this game, from Stonemaier (and others) the figures would paint-up well and look to be around the 28mm mark?

The Asmodee line-up for 2018 seems to fill every cell as we move from Steampunk to tick the post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, hardboiled zombie-mutant fantasy box! I don't know if the figures in Fallout (Fantasy Flight again) are metal, but they have that sculpting style, which I know some people like - for painting - but I'm not so keen on the 'Nottingham' school of chunky, over-emphasised 'fine' detailing.

Myth and legend; Eastern-style, with this one from CMON/Asmodee; that's every box ticked except prohibition-era Chicago, I think! From the illustration; figures look to be at the larger end (28mm) but it's not clear, neither is it clear how many useful figures will be found in the Rising Sun box, or need to be purchased separately?

Ah! Prohibition-era Chicago, well . . . New York! The figures look to be about the same size as the old Parker Games game Vendetta, they also remind me of the Cluedo figures I was looking for the other day, grey with coloured bases, although a couple of the games above have similar, these are closer to what I was thinking-of. I like the little 'stash' tin to keep smuggle the playing pieces in.

That's eight games/game-systems and I'd happily give house-room to all of them, sadly; games like these don't often turn-up in charity shops!