Sunday, October 9, 2022

Anyone Up For Some 54mm Pulp Adventures?

 

British expedition seeking the Tomb of Tut

I have been eying the delightful offerings from King & Country and John Jenkins Designs in the area of King Tut Archeological and WW1 Desert Vehicles, respectively. These are 54mm to 60mm figures from Hong Kong and are aimed for the figure collectors' market, rather than that of war gamers. However, it doesn't prevent one from playing skirmish level games with the figures.

King & Country manufactures the Egyptian terrain in these pictures: King Tut tomb entrance, Sphinxes, stone blocks, and scaffolding. And most of the figures shown are from K&C. John Jenkins Designs makes the Rolls Royce armored car and the Ford Model T car (there are 4 different models to choose from)


Tomb raiders about to find out that there are dangers to their professions. 

Here are some close up photos of the two vehicles. I bought the Rolls Royce maybe four years ago. I had no gaming use for it at the time, but I really liked the look of it and so I bought it so that I could display it on one of my shelves. I saw the Model T Ford at the Chicago Toy Soldier Show this past September 2022 and I similarly made a mental note that I should buy one of these in the future. I didn't buy my copy at the show, but waited at home for about a week before hitting the Purchase Button.


Love at first sight: Rolls Royce armored car and Ford Model T car.


Hercule Poirot chats it up with some Aussiers in the Model T Ford.



King & Country makes the giant King Tutankhamen head, which is actually the entrance to his tomb. I bought the pair of Sphinxes several years ago to use in my 54mm Sudan games, so putting two and two together, I had the scenery for a tomb raider skirmish game.

Yes, I know what you are thinking:old Fritzy always starts by saying a new historical period is "just going to be for skirmish games", and then before you can blink your eyes, he has collected hundreds of the figures and is measuring game tables for big battalion style of games. Well this time I swear that I'm going to keep things on the small side of the spectrum. Yes I could have the whole Egyptology Department of Cambridge University, but what is the point of that?

My thinking is that I can leverage some of the things that I already have to stage some 1920s and 1930s Pulp Adventure games. I already have the desert terrain, I have a large number of Egyptian soldiers and some Dervish that could also be stand ins for the Senussi tribe or other Arabic types. I have collected some 20 plus Middle Eastern civilians in 54mm that I can use to populate a town of some villages. I could probably use some of my British soldiers in sun helmets and khaki as post-WW1 soldiers in North Africa. I could also foresee acquiring some 54mm Afrika Korps figures to use as minions for a German archeological expedition. The little Viennese paper hanger hasn't come along yet, so the Germans are working for the Pergamum Museum in Berlin.


My dog, Bella, unknowingly photo bombed this picture.


The Mummy isn't happy that his sarcophagus is being carried away to the British Museum.


Oh, and did I mention MUMMIES?

If anyone knows of a good set of Pulp Adventure skirmish rules then please let me know with a comment in the comments section below. It would be much appreciated.




Now it is time to start building a back story for American professor Colorado Smith and his faithful dog Bentley.


Other possible characters :

Captain Louis Reynaud

Professor Otto Schmidt and Karl Hans Alberti

That Pettygree fellow and his family

Lord Cavendish of the British Museum

Karl von Munchmuller of the Pergamum Museum 

11 comments:

  1. Have to agree with the comment above, this all looks wonderful and if you have the room, 54mm is a good scale for Pulp, with only a few character figures per side actually involved in the action! The scenery and vehicles really are outstanding!

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  2. Osprey has a 30's Pulp! game coming out in December. I've heard good things about In Her Majesty's Name, though that's obviously a turn-of-the-century ruleset - probably modifiable, though.
    The early Featherstone skirmish rules have potential, and are easy to customize.

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    1. I’ll keep my eye open for this, sounds interesting.

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  3. Great idea for to have pulp games in 54mm a small project of course. With regard to rules - it depends how much you want the individual characters to have lots of abilities (stats) and it is useful to make use of character cards.

    I mostly use a set of basic game rules...https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qrFPtYuWSFLHsQtaKyu_uD3_IGtkfQvW/view?usp=sharing

    Also my Simple Combat rules if deemed appropriate (https://drive.google.com/file/d/13cedDMK1_17qpVMUQ_n-w9hl_oPBT-Vr/view?usp=sharing)

    Happy rules hunting... :)

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  4. OMG! Just outstanding all around!

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  5. Oh wow. That looks amazing, and I can't help but love a Rolls Royce armored car...

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