Lost World: the Lucid Eye Simians

Introduction

It's been a long while since I posted anything about my Lost World collection.  It's a genre which hasn't had much coverage on my blog.  Indeed, it's been 2 1/2 years since I wrote about the large beasties (megafauna).  That doesn't mean that I've given up on it, though.

A couple of recent events have reawakened my interest in the Lost World setting.  Firstly, Steve Barber Models has announced a reworking of the old Prehistoric Settlement game; there will be a nice range of cavemen and Ice Age beasties to support this.  Secondly, the well-known figure sculptor Steve Saleh has created the Lucid Eye range of figures, currently available from Arcane Scenery.  These are specifically aimed at Lost World/Hollow Earth scenarios and the range already has such curios as Atlanteans, Neanderthals and Amazons.  However, the figures that immediately caught my eye were the simians.

Lucid Eye Simians

I've been looking for figures that I could use as early hominids for almost as long as I've been collecting prehistoric figures.  They have to be more than apes, but not as advanced as (or recognisable as) early humans.  As soon as I saw the Lucid Eye simians, I knew that they would do nicely!  They might or might not be based more on fiction than on palaeontology (I'm not an expert on this), but for my purposes that doesn't matter at all.

From the left, "Kobo", "Hurkey", "Skeech" and "Zaius"

 There are 2 packs of simian figures in the range at the moment.  Firstly we have a set of 4 ape men in assorted poses.  They all have weapons; 2 of them have well-made flint spears whilst the other pair have a tree branch and a large bone.  Are they intelligent and skilled enough to have created the spears themselves?  Or did they pinch them from some nearby humans?  I'm not sure and I think I would have preferred less advanced tools - perhaps a simple sharpened stick or a handy-sized rock instead.  Oddly, it only occurred to me after painting these models that I could have converted them very easily.  D'oh!

The SCT32 pack of 4 simians is currently retailing for £7.49, plus postage of course.

I'll call him "Caesar"

 Next, we have the alpha simian.  He's much the same size as the other creatures, but has perhaps a more thoughtful (yet still challenging) stare rather than the raw aggression of the other members of the tribe.  Alpha also has a flint spear, though again it would have been very easy to replace it with a tree branch or some other type of tool.

SCT31 Alpha Simian costs £2.99, thus making him almost twice as expensive (ape for ape) as any of the grunts (and I use that term intentionally!).

 Here's the entire tribe, all together.  It would be very nice if another set or two of simians were to be produced (perhaps some females or adolescents?), but this isn't really necessary.  I could easily build quite a large troop from the models already available, especially with some conversions of their weapons and some different painting (darker for the leaders, grey for the older hominids, perhaps?)

These hominids are actually quite small models.  I've mounted them on 20mm washers, rather than my normal 25mm bases.  They're definitely not in the "giant killer ape" category (unless used with 15mm figures), but then there are plenty of models of gorillas or yetis to fill that niche already.  No, these will do just fine as early hominids in my games.

I can also see them being used as Tarzan's ape family in a more Victorian setting, or even as hostile natives in a remote part of any Pulp world.  Finally, these models are very reminiscent of the chimps and other simians in the "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" film.  They could easily be used in a modern setting as hyper-intelligent laboratory animals bent on escaping from their slavery - change their flint spears for stolen pool cues or cattle prods.  Now there's an idea for a game!

Dreadball: Match Day!

Introduction

"Play Ball!"

The last time I wrote a post about Dreadball, several of you asked for pictures of a match in progress, or perhaps a "highlights" set.  Well, I thought about it, but decided to try something different.  When we played our next game after that, I put my camera on a tripod and took 1 picture after each and every move.  The edited series of pictures was then loaded into Windows Movie Maker and strung together to make the movie you can see below.

Match Day

"Welcome to Riverside Stadium on this fine Spring evening.  Tonight, the Pink Ladies are at home to the Sky City Slammers and we expect to see some fine Dreadball action.  The Ladies are riding high in the Colgrain League this year after some big wins early on, but defeat in a recent game shows that they can be beaten.  On the other hand, the Slammers have everything to prove after a series of mediocre results."

"Both teams are humans, of course and will therefore have similar physical characteristics of speed, strength and so on.  Don't be fooled into thinking that their gameplay is the same, though: the Pink Ladies place a lot of emphasis on running interference and extreme levels of coaching, whereas the Slammers rely on allowing individual players to take the initiative.  We'll see tonight which strategy works better."

"For this game, the Ladies have announced that they'll be fielding "Wildcard".  The brunette is very fast and skillful, but doesn't always seem very engaged with her team.  The Slammers have the contract for "Lucky" Logan; he's always a tough opponent.  Interestingly, neither of these players wears a helmet on the pitch, relying on speed and luck to avoid serious injury.  We'll see how well that works!"

Conclusion

I'm not sure how well this format works.  Obviously there is quite a bit of shake, partly because I don't have a remote release for the camera and partly because people sometimes knock things as they walk past.  There's also quite a lot of clutter around the edges, including intermittent hands, dice and tokens.

It took probably a couple of hours to annotate the 90 or so original images, followed by 5 minutes or less to actually make the movie, so it's quite a lot of work.  And that's without any attempt at adding a soundtrack!

Still, it's good that we try these things occasionally, isn't it?  This was a new technical challenge to me and one that I hope I (and maybe others?) can learn from.

The Lords of Strathclyde

Introduction

A few weeks ago, I showed Coroticus, the warlord for my in-progress SAGA Strathclyde force.  I bought this starter army at Claymore, in August last year, so it's about time that I made some progress on it.  Today it's the turn of the warlord's inner circle/hearthguard, the "Teulu".

The Teulu

I have 8 models here, so that accounts for 2 points of value from the 4 point SAGA starter army.  If you leave the warlord out then these guys are half the cost of the warband all on their own!

All of the Teulu are riding ponies and carrying short spears, swords or both.  7 of the 8 men are clad in mail, though interestingly the one in the pale cloak and blue/white tunic (at the back left) has a leather cuirass instead.  I've just realised that this detail isn't really visible in any of the pictures, though the last image shows a little bit.

The figures are from Gripping Beast, whilst the shield and banner transfers are from Little Big Men.

One of the Teulu carries a horn and I've converted one of the others to carry a banner.  Both of these figures cannot really carry shields in their left hands.  I did want these upper class warriors to have all the best equipment though, so I attached the shields to their backs instead.

The standard bearer already had a leather strap across his shoulder (for his scabbard, really), so I didn't feel the need to add any extra support for the shield.  However the horn blower looked odd with nothing to hold the shield on his back.  I gave him a strap of green stuff across his chest and shoulder; at least it looks plausible to me as a support.

Most of these men have either patterned tunics (using my "not tartan" style) or they have decorative borders on their cloaks, or both.  Their clothing and shields are also somewhat brighter and more colourful than the average Dark Age citizen.  These, along with the armour and relatively abundant equipment, mark them out as richer and generally higher status individuals.

As with all my SAGA forces, the bases carry useful information.  In this case, the grey border marks them out as belonging to the Strathclyde faction (it's very useful to be be able to tell the factions apart during a game!).  In addition, they all have suitable names, just to give the force a bit more character.  Of course, being Welsh (and ancient Welsh, at that), I cannot pronounce some of them...

Conclusion

I've still got 2 points of warriors to paint, so that's another 16 ponies.  I'm beginning to hate preparation work for these animals, as they all have quite a bit of flash and damage that needs to be cut off.  I think that some of Gripping Beast's horse moulds have been very heavily used!  Still, the basic warriors are fine figures; they should be much plainer than the Teulu and therefore simpler to paint.

It'll be interesting to try an all-mounted force in SAGA, especially one that has the option of part of the force arriving during the game - from any table edge!

I've hinted before that I'm playing a Dreadball league with one of my sons.  Since we're not quite half-way through, I thought that I'd record some of the results so far:

League Standings:

Spring Season

Team	Played	Landslide	Won	Lost	Buried	Points
Pink Ladies	4	1	2	1	0	8
Mean Green Machine	2	0	2	0	0	4
Sky City Slammers	3	0	1	2	0	4
Gutter Gashers	4	0	1	2	1	4
Golden Swarm	3	1	0	1	1	4

Individual Games

Home	Away	Result (to home team)	Notes
Pink Ladies	Mean Green Machine
Pink Ladies	Sky City Slammers
Pink Ladies (H)	Gutter Gashers (A)	+1	Ref. blind, several unspotted stomp/sneak fouls, lots of rat fumbles & missed throws
Pink Ladies	Golden Swarm
Mean Green Machine (A)	Pink Ladies (H)	0	Sudden death, Greens won by knockout (all Pink strikers and jacks disabled)
Mean Green Machine	Sky City Slammers
Mean Green Machine	Gutter Gashers
Mean Green Machine	Golden Swarm
Sky City Slammers (A)	Pink Ladies (H)	-1	Winning score on last play of the match
Sky City Slammers (H)	Mean Green Machine (A)	-4	Only 7 players left on pitch at the end
Sky City Slammers (H)	Gutter Gashers (A)	+1	Slammers: 1 dead, 1 hospitalised in 1st rush
Sky City Slammers	Golden Swarm
Gutter Gashers	Pink Ladies
Gutter Gashers	Mean Green Machine
Gutter Gashers	Sky City Slammers
Gutter Gashers (H)	Golden Swarm (A)	+1	Gashers win after "pinball" pass in last rush - ball fumbled but scattered into the arms of another striker - twice!
Golden Swarm (A)	Pink Ladies (H)	-7	Landslide in 7th rush
Golden Swarm	Mean Green Machine
Golden Swarm	Sky City Slammers
Golden Swarm (A)	Gutter Gashers (H)	+7	One rat killed early on

Conclusion

My son [marked (A) in the matches we've played] has developed a very aggressive style that involves slamming as many of the opposing players as possible, preferably from behind.  Whilst this can give good results and cripple the opposing team, it's difficult to catch [for example] a Veer-myn striker - they're just too good at dodging!  Mind you, I'm really starting to hate the big bug in the Golden Swarm team; I've never managed to either avoid it or strike back effectively at it, despite surrounding it on occasion!

We're both becoming more used to the rules, I think.  There has even been some cunning positional play, such as placing a striker ready to catch the relaunched ball after a strike attempt.  I even scored in my opponent's turn once with this ploy.  Although it levelled the score at the time, I lost the match in the long run.  Oh, well.

Back to pictures of miniatures next time, I think...

Raising the Flag

Introduction

A little while ago, I showed how I had painted the Amera F214 Castle Keep.  At the time, I observed that the model would be improved by the addition of a flag.  Even though this was really a throwaway observation, I thought that I detected a subtle note of disappointment from my loyal followers that I hadn't attempted such an enhancement already.

Well, I haven't been able to come up with any compelling reason why I couldn't add a banner to the model, so I sat down this morning and got on with it.  Total time spent was perhaps 30 minutes on the build and rather more on the computer (designing the flag), so this wasn't a difficult project!

Materials

 The flag itself is made from paper.  I drew a suitable shape on the computer and filled it with an appropriate design (the golden, double-headed eagle on a black background matches the heraldry used by some of the Sheriff of Nottingham's men-at-arms in my Robin Hood collection).  This paper flag was then fixed to a simple flagstaff made from 2 pieces of bamboo skewer, notched slightly and glued perpendicular to each other.

Since I wanted the flag to be removable (partly for ease of storage and partly so that I could use different banners in the future), I made the pole much longer than you might have thought necessary.  The socket itself was created by cutting down the casing of a cheap pen that had just stopped working, very conveniently for me!

To brace the socket and prevent it from tearing off the model, I cut out 4 right-angled triangles from thick plasticard (though I imagine that any stiff material - scraps of cardboard, MDF or plastic - would do).  Originally I had made these triangular, with shorter sides of about 2.5" (8cm).  However when I tested them, I realised that they were too deep and so I cut the tips off them.  These parts are structural rather than aesthetic and therefore my original mistake won't matter in the finished model, but it does show once again the importance of dry-fitting everything before applying any glue!

Assembly

Working from the underside of the model, I drilled a hole in the middle of the keep.  This was just large enough for the flagpole to fit loosely.

 I cut down the pen casing to the right length and glued it over the hole, taking care to ensure that it was perpendicular to the surface.  Note: check the length before gluing!  You really don't want the pen to stick out below the base of the model!

The last part of the construction was to glue the 4 supports around the pen casing, thus giving the socket a considerable amount of support.

Finally, turn the model over and drop the flagstaff into the hole.  Simple!

Conclusions

• The flag and staff were made very quickly and without much attention to detail, but there's no reason why one couldn't spend a lot more effort on such a piece.
• I did consider placing the socket in one of the corners of the keep, instead of in the centre.  However it would have been greatly more difficult to work with the sloped plastic that is found there, so in the end I went with the much simpler option: the middle of the courtyard.
• When the flag is removed, the hole in the courtyard is barely visible (and would be even less so if I dabbed a little black paint over the edges of the drilled plastic).  I can still use the keep without a banner, if I desire.

Coroticus, King of Strathclyde

Introduction

Once again, I'm finding it difficult to find the time and the enthusiasm for a decent post.  This was supposed to have been written on Sunday, but it's now 2 days late.  Still, that's enough whining, so on with the show!

We've now played 4 games in our Dreadball league with my 5 teams (men, women, orx, rats and bugs).  All the games (apart from 1 landslide) have gone down to the wire, with the winning score typically being made in the last rush of the match - and most of them hinged on a single dice throw at the end.  Standings are as follows:

Team	Played	Landslide	Won	Lost	Buried	Points
Pink Ladies	2	1	1	0	0	5
Sky City Slammers	2	0	1	1	0	3
Gutter Gashers	2	0	1	1	0	3
Golden Swarm	2	0	0	1	1	1
Mean Green Machine	0	0	0	0	0	0

Coroticus

 I've just recently completed "Coroticus", the warlord for my SAGA Strathclyde Welsh warband (henceforth just Strathclyde).  These are very much the local boys for where I live and that itself is something of a departure for me since I've never really collected armies from my own country before.

Some people like to collect American forces if they come from the USA, British armies if they live in the UK or Slovenian troops if they live in Slovenia.  However I've never felt a strong desire to do this and in truth, the distance in history between me and the Strathclyde makes them as remote as if they had lived on the other side of Europe.

On the other hand, I can look around the local landscape and try to imagine it without all the modern houses and roads, as it might have looked in 800 AD.  Whilst there's nothing left of the structures that the Dark Age inhabitants might have lived in, there are some artifacts.  For example, there's a "hog back" Viking gravestone in Luss churchyard, on the banks of Loch Lomond (though this is probably from the 1263 campaign and therefore somewhat later in history).  Other similar gravestones have, I believe, been found at Govan on the river Clyde.  And there's always Dumbarton Castle, the ancient capital of Strathclyde, which is only 10 miles or so from my house.

So, Coroticus is a Gripping Beast model.  He's the same sculpt that they offer for their Welsh warband of the same period, which is quite reasonable as the Welsh (in Wales) and the Strathclyde Welsh were closely related.

I've hinted at an association with the Scots (the tribes further to the east and north) by giving Coroticus a tartan tunic.  Actually, it's not a "real" tartan in any modern sense of the word, but one of my simplified tartans.  If this needs to be rationalised then I would claim that they probably had less complex patterns of cloth 1200 years ago.  Also, I have trouble painting fine lines...

The casualty on the base is a Viking, so definitely an enemy!  How do I know that he's a Viking?  They wore trousers, whilst the Celtic peoples of the time went bare-legged.

Conclusion

Coroticus isn't quite the first model that I've completed for my Strathclyde warband; I've also finished 4 hearthguard.  However the entire force is mounted and this is slowing down my progress considerably.  Horses aren't that difficult to paint (at least, to a reasonable level, if not a superb one), but they are big and I find the sheer expanse of bare metal somewhat offputting!  Still, I'll get there in the end.

Dreadball: the Coaches

Introduction

As well as players, games of Dreadball can involve other figures such as coaches, cheerleaders and even over-enthusiastic fans.  I haven't got the models to represent all such ancillaries, but I did recently purchase some coaches from eBay.  They were fun to paint up (and fairly quick too!), so here they are.

As an aside, for those of you who aren't really keen on Dreadball, I've almost run out of DB figures to show.  It'll be something different next time, I promise!

Coach Orky

This model is normally only available with "Mantic Points" (the company's loyalty scheme), so I was very pleased to buy him on the open market along with the other coaches.  Mind you, I imagine that even though he's a "restricted" figure, in practice there are probably quite a lot of him floating around.

He's an ork (obviously!), but rather a thin and weedy one.  Indeed, if it wasn't for the head, his physique would be spot on for a human instead.  Orky clearly doesn't believe in Theodore Roosevelt's  "speak softly, and carry a big stick" policy.  Instead, he wants to shout loudly and carry a big stick!.

Coach Shorty

Next up is my dwarf coach.  I'm not sure if he's shouting something himself or whether he's having difficulty in hearing what the referee just said.  After all, it looks as if Shorty was a player once himself and has the injuries to prove it: he's got a robotic arm and a large plate of metal fitted to his skull (where his ear once was?).

Coach Ratty

Third in line is my veer myn coach.  Unlike the dwarf above, he appears to be intact, although perhaps somewhat elderly and unsteady.  I wonder, do rat men age faster than other humanoids?  Are they particularly short-lived?

Coach Pike

Finally, we come to the human coach.  He also has not aged particularly gracefully; I assume that he was a player in his youth but was injured so badly as to require a support chair for the rest of his life.  Bonus points for anyone who can recognise the symbols on the back and side of his chair!

Conclusion

Like most of Mantic's models, these are made from their particular mix of resin and/or plastic that is sometimes referred to as "restic".  This is not my favourite material to work and it tends to have a lot of flash and to lack detail.  However, I had no problems with these figures beyond needing a little filler on Ratty.

All 4 coaches are somewhat unusual models and have no obvious Dreadball paraphernalia, so they could be transplanted into other SciFi settings very easily, I think.  I've already got some half-baked plans to do just this...

So, what shall I do for my next post?