Last weekend, Doug stopped by for a game of Chain of Command on my new table. However, we spent so much time just talking, that we didn't have time for a full CoC game! As the table was set up, we decided to fit in a quick game of What A Tanker instead.
I took Harry the Valentine tank and Bert, the Churchill III.
Doug took a Panzer IV and a partially painted Panzer III. One of these days I should look up German tank-naming conventions, so they can get appropriate names like the Allied tanks get!
Here is Bert, climbing a hill as that's what Churchills do!
And here's Harry.
Doug's Panzer III lines up a shot on Harry.
And BOOM! Harry is down for the count!
Panzer III decides to ford the creek...
And then play cat and mouse with Bert around the hill. Bert took quite a few hits, but was able to shake them off thanks to his heavy armour!
The Pz IV decided to cross the bridge, but it was a tight fit!
Bert and the Pz III in a face to face standoff, neither had enough firepower to knock out the other (also, neither of us could get the run of dice we needed to acquire, aim and shoot when we needed it!).
Eventually the Pz IV was able to come up behind Bert.
Bert maneuvered to face both German tanks, but then finally Pz IV got in a solid hit, and Bert failed all his armour saves. Thanks Doug for a fun game!
The latest entry from Pulp Figures' Dangerous Dames is the High Priestess set. I've added the Scarlet Hood from the Weird Villains as (s)he fit in with this group!
Here are the High Priestess, Scarlet Hood and an assistant.
The altar, with fancy cloth.
The defiant male victim, hogtied to keep him from wriggling too much.
Here is another anti-tank gun for the Germans. This is the Pak 38 from Rubicon Models, which I picked up from Imperial Hobbies. The model comes with 5 crew, and I added one more from an extra Warlord Games figure.
As I painted the Warlord crewman I realised that he might not be a German figure. But with the same paint scheme, he doesn't stand out.
Another 5 of Pulp Figures' Dangerous Dames (and a cat)!
First up, a couple of Rugged Adventuresses. A pilot:
I tried for an RAF/RCAF blue rather than khaki or olive green. She gets to keep her faded leather jacket, though. Her friend is carrying a stripped down Lewis gun, possibly salvaged from a wrecked 'plane.
Next is a archaeologist, studying a strange, tentacled statuette. She's ready for all sorts of weather, with her warm tweed suit, strong boots, a brolly, woolly scarf and sunnies.
Not sure what this lady's job might be, maybe a stage magician? I went with a single stripe on her trousers, rather than attempting pin stripes.
I added a backpack and canteen to this adventurer, from the bonus packs from the DD Kickstarter.
For the longest time, I've wanted a full pipe band (in miniature, anyway!). I never quite got around to it. It's always been easy enough to find pipers and snare drummers from a variety of eras, including Napoleonic, Colonial, and others, but where my search fell apart has been finding the tenor and bass drummers. So while I came back to the idea several times, I never got around to it.
As my Operation Husky project progressed, I kept seeing the Perry Miniatures piper and tried to figure a way to incorporate this model into my plans.
And then I found this clip:
That clip shows the Regimental Pipes and Drums of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada beating retreat in Agira, Sicily on 28th of July, 1943. This was the first time in the Second World War that this ceremony had been done in enemy territory!
Anyway, as I mentioned above, the challenge in recreating the P&D in miniature is getting tenor and bass drummers (also a drum major, but I can skip that for now!).
First up, here are the drummers. I took a couple of the bodies from the Perry Desert Rats box, and some arms with open hands. I added some heads wearing glengarries from the Perry's plastic colonial infantry box. The drums are from the Victrix plastic highlanders set, and drumsticks were made by trimming down pickaxes. I made the kilts from greenstuff.
The bass drummer was made pretty much the same way as the tenor drummers. The bass drum is made from cardboard, built around a spare wheel.
The snare drummers were a little simpler, they are a mix of the WW2 Desert Rats with the drummer arms and drums from the Perry plastic NWF infantry box.
I asked the Perrys if they could sell me half a dozen pipers (so I could save having to purchase 144 tam-o-shanters). They went one better, and just sent me the pipers! I modified them, adding greenstuff kilts and headswaps for glengarries.
And here is the band, ready for paint!
As these men are from the Seaforths, they are in MacKenzie tartan. Here's the bass drummer
If you look at the bass drummer in the video clip, you can see the bass drummer has a bugle, so I duplicated it! The other drummers also likely have bugles, but I didn't see any in the video, so that was my excuse for only giving one to the bass drummer!
Here are the tenor drummers:
The drum slings are also greenstuff.
Here is the full drum corps
And here are the pipers. I was a bit nervous about some of the glengarry heads being bearded, but then I found out about Ed Essen, pipe major of the Seaforths. He quite happily grew his beard out for the duration of the war!
Finally, here is the full P&D beating retreat in my miniature town square!
