American-Lafrance Fire Engine

During the 1931 Black Tuesday labour battle in Estevan, Saskatchewan, the RCMP and town police used the town's American-Lafrance fire engine to intimidate the strikers.  During the battle, RCMP first opened fire in response striker Nick Narvan climbing onto the fire engine.  When I organised the first attempt at the game in May I improvised the fire engine from a 1:48 scale WWII tanker truck on a deuce and half truck.  It bothered me that the model was not authentic, so I searched for a more accurate model of the town's 1928 fire engine, eventually finding an STL for a very similar model from Wargaming 3D.  Gaming buddy Tyler printed it out for me, and here it is with some paint on it.

For comparison here is the new 1/56 fire engine alongside the 1:48 scale water tanker.

Vampire Hunters

 Last week at the Trumpeters' monthly game night, Fletch had some old (really old - 1992 old) miniatures for sale, so I picked up two packs of Grenadier Miniatures Vampire Hunters.  You see, I have this idea for a Halloween scenario...

There are three figures, one with a cross, one with a stake and one with, something in his hand.  Lost Wiki says it's a mirror, but looks more like a vial of holy water to me, so that's how I painted it.

I decided that the hunter in the centre looks like Stack, one of the twins played by Michael B Jordan in the 2025 movie Sinners, in my opinion one of the best movies of recent years, so he's painted as close I could match to Stack's red fedora and pin stripe suit.

One of the ever-present gripes of gamers is that miniatures are subject to 'scale creep', and that miniatures gradually increase in size so that older miniatures are simply too small to put on a table with newer ones.  Well, these models put the lie to that complaint!  These figures tower over newer models.  Figures from Pulp Figures for comparison.

But I don't mind, once the game starts no one will be bothered by the size difference.

Film Noir version of 02 Hundred Hours

 Tuesday evening, Tyler came over for a game, this time without Oliver, who is visiting his grandparents.  Arthur came up with a twist on 02 Hundred Hours, with 1930s private eyes as the attackers and beat cops as the defenders. We did a simple substitution with the PIs fielded as partisans (mostly so they could use the Plan cards) and the beat cops used the German cards.  We played the Information scenario with the PIs tasked to locate important information for their client, with the beat cops patrolling the streets to prevent break-ins.

Private Eyes.

Beat cops.

Arthur set up the table as a small town.  Locations to be searched are noted in red, and the police patrol route is marked in green.

Police on patrol.

The plain clothes detective is supervising the beat cops.

Private eye sneaks onto the table.

Lead PI moves up, followed by the Man in Black.

The police detective was on a roving patrol.  Normally, this means that he ends up wandering back and forth, but this time he just made a beeline for the intruder.  These walls are 2" high which we decided was high enough to block line of sight.

He moved straight to the PI, jumped the wall and ended up face to face with him.  The alarm had not been raised but this confrontation definitely raised the alert level to suspicious. So while the detective couldn't attack the PI, he shouted "stop!  Explain yourself!"

Meanwhile a pair of PIs moves past the cemetery, keeping an eye on the beat cop in the distance.

Meanwhile, this pair of cops spent the whole game carefully wandering far away from any serious activity.  We joked that they were like Pintel and Ragetti, the funny pirate pair from the Pirates of the Caribbean series.

The PI pair get caught sneaking through the graveyard.  The cop shoots one of them!

The lead PI KOs the detective.

Across the table, the other two PIs have been spotted by another beat cop.

The Man in Black searches the green house, but Arthur played an event card:  the location is booby-trapped, and the MiB is taken down!

The lead PI rushes to search the house, as the police captain moves up to intercept him.

He grabs the clue, and moves around the corner to hide from the captain.

Police reinforcements move up, and the tommy-gun toting cop guns down the lady PI.

Flashlight man points his light at the cop who shot his friend, but is surprised that it has no effect.

Cops take out the remaining investigator on the right side of the table!

Finally, the cops catch up with the lead PI.  He had almost escaped, then Arthur played another event card to block his first choice of exit point, and then he was caught as he ran to the alternative exit.

It was fun to reskin this game from WWII to 1930s film noir.  The game played the same, but with a slightly different flavour.  Tyler, as the PI player, was a great sport as he lost yet another game of 02h00.  He really likes the feel of the game, and he has played as both attacker and defender, but each time the random events seem to never go his way.  Arthur, as the police player, got some great event cards, and really lucked out as the random movement of the detective took him straight to the PIs.  This raised the alarm before the PIs had a chance to investigate any of the designated locations.

Looking forward to another go at 02h00 once we are back from our holiday!

Estevan repeat

Long gone to Saskatchewan - having refined the approach for the strikers vs cops, we had another go at Black Tuesday in Estevan.  The major difference from the previous game is changing from standard Fistful of Lead to FFoL Bigger Battles.  The two sides were steamlined:  the strikers consisted of union organiser Annie Buller with three bases of 6 striking mineworkers plus two bases of their families - one each of women and children.  The police side had two bases of 3 police (RCMP plus Estevan Town Police) led by Chief of Police Alex McCutcheon and Mayor David Bannatyne.

As a recap, in the summer of 1931, mineworkers in southeast Saskatchewan's Souris valley went on strike to protest their wages being capped and for a release from the company store monopoly.  On September 29th, the workers planned a parade through the Town of Estevan to bring attention to the reasons for their strike.  Town cancel met the night before to ban the parade, so when the mineworkers and their families arrived, they were met by a line of Estevan Police reinforced by RCMP.  

We kept the scenario objectives simple.  The strikers goal is to get to the cenotaph, and the cops goal is to stop them. Below is the table looking southeast along 4th Street with the cenotaph in the foreground.  Souris Ave runs diagonally just past the courthouse.

A farmer drives his Model T Ford past a run-down building.

The strikers, led by Annie Buller.

Against them, the police led by Police Chief McCutcheon and Mayor Bannatyne.  Mounties are in their khaki patrol tunics rather than the more famous red serge. 

Mineworkers march down 4th St.

Police form a line at Souris Ave as a local shopkeeper looks on.  Chief McCutcheon gets his loudspeaker ready to warn the marchers.

After being by a rock thrown by the miners, the shopkeeper gets out of the way!

The police chief "reads the riot act" at the marchers.  This is a contested roll.  If the chief wins the roll, he gets to put a number of shock points on each group of miners.  Shock points are shown by the black dice.

Which Side Are You On group decides that they will go via the back yards to get around the police line.

Mineworkers are reluctant to close with the police.

Another group of strikers choose to flank on the other side of the intersection.

A couple of RCMP get out the fire hose to discourage the marchers.

But they can only point the hose one direction at a time!

Two groups of workers close in on the cenotaph.

Chanting "Down with the Company Store!", Annie Buller and the mineworkers' wives keep up their advance along 4th Street.

Mineworkers reach the cenotaph, put their boots to Mayor Bannatyne and claim victory!

Overall, the rules we use for these games are getting smoother.  Deploying the groups of strikers and cops as FFoL BB units works much better than as standard FFoL skirmish mobs. We've come up with ways to use shock rather than wounds to influence the game outcomes - the cops want to inflict enough shock to force the strikers to withdraw.  There are still a few rules to fine tune but overall I think we are on the right track. 

A mixed bag.

Here's a mixed group of figures coming off the painting table.  Mostly Pulp Figures but a couple of exceptions.

First up a couple of folks who might end up participating in some civil disturbance.  The kid on the left is wearing what I would call a Jughead hat, as I've only ever seen is on the Archie Comics character, but apparently it's called a 'whoopee cap'.  Go figure!  

Here's another view of the chap with the Molotov cocktail tipped back so his face is more visible. 

A couple of working folk.  The laundry worker or tailor on the right is from Brigade Games, with more of a 19th Century/Wild West sort of vibe than interwar. 

And to finish up the group, a Pulp Figures journalist (or similar) and The Highland Major from Grey for Now Games.