Category: Pulp

A while ago on the Warhammer subreddit somebody posted this great themed 40k Space Marine army. The army is beautiful, but that second photo of the cultists caught my eye. Those figures would be superb for Pulp gaming. It turns out they’re Perry Miniatures plastic Mahdists with weapon swaps.

The Perry brothers released these figures back in 2011, and they’re still a bargain, with 40 plastic figures in a box that’ll cost you $40nzd locally. That’s a buck a figure, which is interesting to compare with the Games Workshop Empire Battle Wizards box which cost me the same amount for two plastic figures recently. Anyway I had to have some, so ordered a box a week or so ago from Wayland Games. They arrived Saturday and I’ve been playing around with them since.

These multipart figures are intended to be used for Arabic and African tribesmen fighting in the Victorian Mahdist War in the Sudan (which Winston Churchill experienced). However what I wanted them for was Arabic street life, thieves, thugs and possibly angry mobs. I’ve been assembling a bunch of them as ‘Nile Arabs’ in angry ‘sticks and fists’ poses which is quite easy to do with the figures. Many of their arms are carrying spears on the original sprues, so a bit of creative trimming gives you sticks pretty easily.

The second photo is a quick scale compare with some other 28mm figures. That’s an Artizan Designs DAK German to the left and a Copplestone Castings Professor on the right. I’ve put the Mahdists on GW plastic bases so the comparison is fair. As you can see the Perry Mahdists mix nicely with other 28mm Pulp ranges.

Here’s the same figures posed as a small, angry mob. The box gives you 40 figures, I suspect I can use most of them, in a mix of roles:

• A handful could be used as hawkers, or general folks in the street, which should mix nicely with my West Wind Cairo crowd once painted.
• Street thieves escaping a crime, possibly with a group of adventurers pursuing them.
• Animal herders (the sticks and stances sort of suggest that on a few of the figures), who could be driving the two Ebob Miniatures camels I have through town.
• An angry street mob pursuing somebody that needs beating with sticks and fists. Perhaps a foolish adventurer who discharged a pistol in a busy street!
• Really enraged villagers or farmers out for blood, armed with their father’s swords and ancient 1860’s rifle/musket weapons. This is because the arm options on the sprues will force me to give at least a handful of figures swords and muskets.

At any rate this reasonably priced box of Perry Miniatures has given me a bunch of figures to use as kick off points, or as extras in a bunch of Pulp scenarios.

I haven’t played Pulp .45 Adventure for a while now but still find myself sporadically buying 28mm miniatures for the system. My most recent impulse purchase was the interesting looking Panzer 38(t) from Warlord Games.

This is the first and last tank I’ll add to my pulp vehicle collection which already includes an Opel Blitz from EBob Miniatures and a Bolt Action German Sdkfz 222 Scout Car, both of which eventually got painted. The .45 system doesn’t include any rules for armored vehicles but I couldn’t resist this inter-war Czech tank with a profile familiar to any WWII buffs or war-gamers. This first photo shows the tank next to the Sdkz-222 scout car and a couple of Artizan Designs DAK 28mm soldiers for scale.

With the strong exchange rate against the Euro, the 18GBP price came out to a comfortable $40NZD including shipping, and despite the fact I ordered it just before Xmas (something I typically avoid), Warlord Games were able to deliver it well packaged and undamaged to New Zealand in a little over a week.

The kit is a mixture of four large resin parts and two small sprues of detail pieces cast in a very soft white metal. You can see the de-sprued but largely uncleaned pieces in this second photo (barring one small metal piece which I believe is a headlight). The white metal parts also included a tank commander torso to drop into the open turret which is a nice bonus – although I’ll probably just model mine buttoned up. There was some minor flash and a few small damaged points and bubbles on the resin parts which I may not bother patching prior to painting. Five minutes of trimming and filing cleaned the model up enough for assembly and it dry fitted together well. Overall the riveted and detailing on the tank body is nice, as are the tracks and road wheels and I’m happy with the overall package. It’ll look great once put together and painted up on the table and rolling slowly towards a bunch of hapless pulp adventurers…”I say Maude, they appear to have a TANK”.

After doing some research via google image searches I think I’ll build up some stowage on the back deck. The 38(t) had such a small interior it seemed fairly common to store tarped over personal kit and trays of jerry cans on the flat back deck, as well as the turret bustle. Fortunately I have some Ebob 28mm jerry cans and 40 gallon drums I bought years ago with the Opel Blitz. Time to finally put them to use!