Gangstas

 

As I hadn't got anything got prepared for this week's post, having only just got back from my all too brief recent holiday, I dug out one of the boxes I 'rescued' from the late, great Bryan Scott's collection.

As was all too frequent in Bryan's labelling what was in the box was not always what was on the label!

I was pleasntly surprised to see that this was not the case with this particular box as the box contained just over a hundred 'gangsta' types (btw I hate the term 'gangstas') , They're from a mixture of manufacturers some I don;t recognise, but a lot that I do - Bobby Jacksons gangsters, probably from Black Cat (when they did sell them), a lot of Foundry Streetfighters and maybe one or two Hasslefree types with possibly some Reaper minis too. I was surprised to see so many, though I did know Bryan had all the Bobby Jackson figures. 

Here's the photos of the contents:

This collection has some of the best figures Bryan painted imho

Wonderful detailing

Notice the flaking on the chap on the left's hat, Bryan didn't varnish his figures!

The vast majority of the figures have names on their bases

The Ak 47 gang, with one of many ladies on the right

More ladies,  I just love Lulu (second from the right)

Some big disparities in heights !

A couple or three Bobby Jackson figures there

Hasslefree or maybe Reaper central figure

Yardies ?

A few more ladies

I don't recognise the provenance of these

Boom-box and shotguns (and anothr lady)

More heavy weaponary on show

Wonderful mix of weapons, figures and poses

See above comment, bored now

Are we nearly there yet ? (yes - Ed.)

End of part one...

Part two...The Chicos and chicorittas

The rest of the Chicos etc. (Phew- the end)

That's some collection, ideal for drug wars or similar and whilst I have quite a few of these, I've nowhere near the numbers Bryan accumulated.

In the last few days of my holiday I gm's a rpg game called Og and great hilarity ensued as played had a very limited vocabulary for their cavemen (and women). I also played in a DnD adventure, playing as a Paladin - probably the hardest character I've ever played , but great fun and nostalgia.

Additional boardgames played were "Witches" and "Alchemists" that I didn't take part in (limited numbers), Fire Point (again) plus some of the other games were re-visited - a thouroughly enjoyable holiday. 

Hopefully I've also managed to get up to date with all my commenting  too, after being a bit lazy in this respect.

That's it then for another week, thanks for taking the time to visit, hopefully there was something here of interest, next week I'll be posting more figures from Bryan's colection - Zombicide humans !

As always your comments are both welcomed and truly appreciated.

Holiday fun and games

 So I'm on holiday again with friends and family, roughing it in the depths of wild Cumbira with the only facilities available being a heated swimming pool, shops , cafes, restaurants and gift shops, all a good five minutes walk from our house (with meagre facililties - just central heating, sauna, steam room and giant-sized outdoor hot-tub),  en site bath roomse but we can handle all this inconvenience! 

Our time is spent availing ourselves of what facilites we can scavenge for and the tedious wait for Chinese and Indian food being delivered (there are other alternatives avavilable too) is alleviated by the few luxuries we have brougt with us - namely board games, card games and Rpgs. The photos on the right and below show the meagre choices, brought by just one of our number.

Here's a few photographs of games we've played so far (most I'd never played before, so typically, being old, with bad eyesight etc., I haven't won a single one yet (even the cooperative one - Flashpoint, though no photographs exist of this particular disaster as my character fell foul of the collapsing building.)

(Random comments as an extra bonus)

"Sushi Party" - a card game I couldn't get my head around!

"Not Alone", an Alien versus escping astronauts in a race , against the Alien, for the first time, I came within a whisker of winning this one !

"King of Tokyo", a monster bashing game of dice rolls and cards, I was one dice roll away from winning this but was beaten by my daughter (of course)

Love letters, a simple enough card game, played two, lost two and once more my daughter pipped me at the post in the second.

At this stage, it seemed that just as I was getting the hangh of these games, the game was quickly changed, my age and cunning strategy just wasn't working.

"7 Wonders", and easy to learn card based, building game

7 Wonders again, and once again I came fourth on points (out of the four playmg)

"Forbidden Desert", where the terrain is your only enemy !

Forbidden Desert is a card driven game without dice, but a very good game asnd difficult to win with four players I played twice with twomdifferent characters, but in the second game with cooperation to strategise our approach we managed to escape by the skin our teeth (at Novice level-  Ed.)

A beautiful and robust game, but very difficult imho.

"Castle Panic", well named, as hordes of goblins , orc and trolls attack the players' castle

Castle Panic's board in play.

 I didn't get to play "Castle Panic", as I had football to watch (Chelses v Spurs) and was excused boots, but it looked good, once more with excellent production values. (Photos taken at half-time -Ed.)

"Dungeon Mayhem", a simple, fun, card game - two played, two lost (of course).

I have a lot more games to look forward to losing but thats's it for now.

Thanks for taking the time to visit and of course your comments are always welcomed and appreciated

 

Old Photos

 Here are the remaining old photographs re-discovered by my better half. They show old armies that I no longer have, 20mm WW II, 20mm Napoleonic, 25mm English Civil War, 20mm ACW and part of my large collection of WW I aircraft, along with a couple of photographs of  54mm ACW figures that I still have and two photographs showing the late Peter Guilder's Waterloo set-up.

All these photgraphsdate from sometime in the earl 1970s.

ThePhotograph on the right shows a random Napoleonic game, using mostly Airfux figures - even back then I used underscaled buildings!

Here's the rest of the photographs:

Another shot of the battle above

An unpainted 20mm Minifig figure of Lord Picton is the only survivour of my Napoleonics that I have.

End of game shot of a WW II battle, some trres and the house in the bottom right are the only survivours of this collection.

Confederates attacking a Union held barn (I still have everything in this picture)

Three of my Jasta 6 aircraft

In the above photograph's reverse are listed, left to right, all the names of the pilots just visible. Our group had just about every available WW I aircraft produce by both Airfix and Revell.

An Airfix garage cobverted for use by my Jasta 6. 

Part of my very large 20mm ACW collection (all Airfix) - all long gone

My ECW Royalist army lined up for an Edgehill refight

Parliamentarians opposing the King at Edgehill (all Minifigs)

Parliamentarians attacking Royalist in the above battle...

...and the Royalist's reply - you can tell they're royalists- they have feathers, not lobster pots!

A demo game for a local church (Bonus colour photo - Ed.)

Proof my figures were painted, even back then.

Finally, one from one of the few wargames shows I was able to attend, at Hull, featured the huge Waterloo collection of the late, great Peter Guilder. I doubt I ever seen anything in all my years that has been so inspiring and the man himself was equally so.

The building is La Haye Saint

The mass of French cavalry was very impressive.

Thats it then, proof that I was a crap photographer back then too. All the photos were taken on my polaroid camera, which at the time was a very expensive undertaking and the colour photographs cost me more than half a week's wages (for eight), hence they're a rarity  for me.

That's it then for another week, next week I'll be on holiday in the far west (Cumbria), so may not get a blog report out, but I will endeavour to do so.

Thanks for taking the time to visit, hopefully there was something of interest in yet another trip down my pernsonal lane of nostalgia and, as always, your comments are welcomed and truly appreciated.