Hezekiah Kresk - Dark Judge

Some times the law is not enough to restrain law breakers. In those situations, the authorities call on the Dark Judges, a shadowy arm of the Adeptus Arbites. The Dark Judges dispense a form of justice, brutal and terminal, unhindered by the niceties of formal law enforcement protocols or procedures.* 

Kresk could find a home in a number of retinues with his knowledge of the law, together with his skills to bypass it!

Kresk  is a pretty straightforward build - Space Marine scout with a Skitarii helmet. While the build was easy, the painting wasn't: this was one of those frustrating figures where the first paint job just doesn't work, so I had to strip him down and start again. The paint scheme is a little homage to / pale imitation of Johan over at The Convertorum. If you haven't seen his stuff, do yourself a favour. Imaginative conversions, coupled with superb painting.

Expect to see a bit more 40Kish stuff coming down the pipe. I'm plotting one or two Pulp Alley campaigns in this setting next year, and with my slow painting I need a run-up!

*Aussie readers, perhaps the Imperium recruits them from the Gold Coast police?

Don't Miss the Boat - a Pulp Alley Game

In our last episode, the Hollywood starlet Rita Farnsworth was set upon by two gangs bent on capturing her. She managed to evade them, slipping away during the fighting. Since then she has been hiding with a local family. Two days ago, she spied a sailor in the market. Approaching him, she learned he was the mate of the tramp steamer Errant Captain. He, in turn, was stunned to learn her identity, and quickly agreed to help her escape. 

After an overnight journey to a secluded coastline, Rita and the mate wait to meet a landing party from the Errant Captain. Now, in the pre-dawn, as they head towards the boat, they realise they are far from alone...

The game is a slightly modified version of 'The Hit' scenario from Vice Alley. Rita has to get to the ship's boat with one of the sailors by the end of turn 6 to escape. The game starts in pre-dawn darkness. Shooting is limited to 12", any characters who run may receive a peril, and any characters who fly face an extreme peril. Andrew, with his jump pack Zeppelin troopers, wasn't a fan of that one! These conditions would last until sun-up: 6 on a d6, check at the end of each turn. Turn one = one dice, turn two = two dice, etc.

Rita and the mate.

The rest of the Errant Captain's crew.

But wait, what are those hazy red figures?

And what about that brown horde doing their best impression of a napoleonic firing line?

Captain Lucas got off to a slow start in her maiden game.

The cultists close in.

Now it seems I missed some shots of some of the crucial action. But let's try to sum it up. We've never really used bursts is a game before. Three inch template. Everyone underneath has to beat a random peril, or they have to roll for wounds. Followers are generally terrible at passing perils. Most of the cultists and zeppelin troopers you saw before are followers.

Now go back and look a the pictures. How close are they standing!? Yes, let that sink in... The ship's bosun (grey shirt with tommy gun), singlehandedly took out six or seven opponents with a few well placed bursts. It was carnage.

A couple of cultists momentarily threatened to grab Rita, but it seemed all too easy for the sailors.

Until sun up (end of turn three). Then the whine of jetpacks filled the air and the fighting heated up.

Even so, Rita was able to get to the boat.

She was accosted by cultists and attacked by zeppelin troopers, but they were all quickly cut down by the ship's crew.

On the last turn, we'd just about run out of people! We had twenty-eight characters on the board at the start of turn one, now there are just six and only three of those are still standing! A zeppelin trooper made a final grab for Rita, but got hit with an oar for his troubles.

Where does that leave us? Rita has evaded capture. She's in the boat. But there's no one to row! What happens next? Answers on a note in a stamped, self-addressed bottle...

Well, apart from the gnawingly ambiguous ending, that was one of the most fun games of Pulp Alley I've played (it helped that I was the sailors!) It certainly was the one with the biggest body count.

Sci Fi Walls Test Paint

Just a really quick post. I've done a test paint with four different possible colour schemes for my walls. If you look carefully, you can see there are three different variations in the green segment (left, right and bottom left).

Which colour takes your fancy?

Scratch Built Sci Fi Walls

Here's the saga of my sci fi walls. I've been wanting to build some for my Pulp Alley meets Rogue Trader project. Cork tile is my material of choice far more forgiving than foamcore, more rugged too.
Here are walls mark one - a nice design, I especially like the angled buttresses.

And to make them versatile, I stuck the end buttresses on with rare earth magnets, so you can flick them off and have a long wall.

Two problems - one is that it's a serious pain to connect anything to the walls anywhere along the length of them with all those buttresses and other bits. (See the last photo for what I had in mind.)

Secondly, because almost all the cork runs in the same direction (vertical pieces along the length of the wall) I ended up with warping. Not major, but enough to be noticeable and annoying.

So, mark two. Corners instead of walls.

The lovely angled buttresses are gone, they didn't fit these dimensions as well. But the major design advance is the flat bottom that everything else glues onto. No warpage there. All good. But the more I look at them, the more I see a missed opportunity: they look fine, but they're one-sided. If I make them double-sided, how much more versatile will they be!

So, the final (hopefully!) design.

They can make corridors.

Rooms.

And the original reason I built them, using a few extra additions.

Now I just hope it doesn't take me as many tries to figure out what colour to paint them!

You can see the finished walls here.

Pulp Alley League - Tramp Steamer crew

I've had these figures painted up for a while, but I finally got around to drawing up their stats for a game today.

Annie Lucas was just four when her father was lost at sea. John Lucas was captain of the Atlantic Queen, the pride of the Easterman Company's shipping line. His dream had always been much less grandiose. To own his own steamer, running cargo and a few passengers to exotic locales. He had been saving to purchase his own ship when the Atlantic Queen sank with all hands. 

Annie inherited her father's savings and his dream. In time, she was able to purchase a dilapidated steamer, renaming it the Errant Captain. Annie has assembled a loyal crew, none more than her bosun. 

Bosun Philips is in fact none other than Annie's father! He was abducted from the Atlantic Queen as she was scuttled by saboteurs. For months he was tortured and questioned about the Atlantis Imperative, something he knew nothing about. He was eventually able to escape. He was happy to lie low until he learnt that his daughter had followed him into the shipping trade. Fearing that she will be pursued by the same shadowy organisation that abducted him, he joined her crew under an assumed name. Age and the vicissitudes of his ordeal have made him unrecognisable to his daughter, and his anonymity enables him to quietly watch for signs of any trouble. 

Red Artillery

A battery of field guns ready to support my red force. A little blurry, sorry.

 Once again, these 76mm field guns are produced by Peter Pig. Nice figures, as always, although I was a little unsure what the guy nearest the breech was supposed to be doing. I positioned him as if he's shutting the breech because I didn't have any better ideas!

I just need to paint up a base of officers and hangers-on, and I'll have a starter force ready to go for Red Actions. Once they're done. I'll try to snag a picture of the whole force.

Provincials' Officer

The captain for my FIW provincials.

A 28mm Galloping Major figure.

Leading his men: hopefully to victory, although with provincials you can never be too sure!