Song of Drums and the Spirit World?

    It's 'Song of Drums and Tomahawks' with mythological creatures from the "Spirit World" added in!

One of my co-authors of Song of Drums and Tomahawks (my French & Indian War rules) mentioned he was intrigued by incorporating fantasy and horror elements in skirmish warfare on the American frontier. Mike S also knew I had done some preliminary research into creatures from various tribal myths with a look towards doing a similarly themed expansion for our rules. Since family and school have my writing tied up for now, I urged him to pursue it.

    "We come from the land of ice and snow..." -- the Viking invaders of Newfoundland

Last night, we sat down with our Sunday evening gaming group and gave it our first playtest. Mike liberally blended rules and traits from various other games in the "Song of..." series, both Basic rules and Advanced. Interestingly, he had set up three one-on-one scenarios from wildly different times on the American frontier. My game against Allen was set in the Middle Ages with Vikings vs. Skraelings in Newfoundland. Mike faced off against Keith in one set during the Salem witch trials. And finally, Joel and Mike's son Jason played English and French forces set upon by a Wendigo. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of the other games -- just my own. 

    The shaman urges the Skinwalkers forward, the Bear having already changed into his animal form

Allen took the Vikings and had a force of a Hero, four spearmen, three archers, a priest of Odin, and three brothers who were berserkers/weres. Similarly, I had three Skinwalkers (Bear, Wolf, Puma), a shaman, tribal chieftain, and a half dozen bow armed Skraeling warriors. We each moved our forces up to rocky outcrops in the light woods, while sending forward a handful of troops to scout out the enemy. The difference was I sent my three Skinwalkers to attack the enemy while Allen had sent ordinary Viking warriors. 

    My plan takes shape -- 3 powerful skinwalkers ready to pounce on two ordinary Viking warriors

My plan was to pounce upon the spearmen with my much-tougher Skinwalkers and hopefully get a "gruesome kill" (which Mike was re-introducing into these games). Allen was also struggling with activation rolls, and it looked like my plan was set to be implemented as the three Skinwalkers faced off against two trembling Vikings. Allen's dice came to life, though, and in a flash, three werewolves howled towards my trio and it was now 4 to 3. Still, he hadn't made contact, so I was able to begin the melee on my next turn. I sent the Bear Skinwalker, the mightiest creature on the table, forward to attack the werewolf on the end with a "powerful blow" (-1 to the enemy). Up +2 on the die roll, the mighty bear knocked the werewolf down. My Wolf Skinwalker surged forward and slew the disadvantaged werewolf. First blood to the Skraelings protecting their homeland!

    But it was not to be -- two werewolves race to the aid of the trembling Viking spearmen!

My plan was to next begin working on his ordinary Viking warriors. The chieftain, noticing that his Skraeling warriors were hanging back (bad activation rolls), raced forward to support his mighty skinwalkers. He launched arrow after arrow at the Vikings, keeping them from helping each other. Meahwhile, the Bear-sark Viking changed into his animal form and hurled himself upon the Bear Skinwalker. He was swatted backwards with a mighty sweep of the skinwalker's paw. Time and again, the bear would hurl himself upon his ursine rival. Each time he was driven back or his attack stopped.

    First blood! The Bear Skinwalkers knocks down the werewolf and my Wolf then leaps in for the kill

As a Viking and member of an honor culture, Allen fought fair, one-one-one matchups. My Skraelings had no such scruples. We ganged up on enemy warriors whenever we could. The plan was to try to get a gruesome kill -- tripling an enemy's total in combat. This would cause a morale check for all within a Long distance and likely shatter his line. This should leave more lone, unsupported Vikings to pick off. Eventually, the Wolf and Bear teamed up against a Viking spearmen whose head soon went flying through the air. The Viking line duly fragmented, but none fled the field completely.

    Lucky long range arrow knocks down a Viking warrior while the Puma Skinwalker wades in, too

The Viking leader saw the situation was dire and stepped in to intervene. He charged the Puma Skinwalker and slew it with a might stroke of his sword -- worthy of the Sagas! However, encouraged by their tribe's success, the Skraeling archers had finally crept within range. Whenever a Viking was knocked down by an arrow, a Skinwalkers or the chieftain would race over and finish him off. A key mechanic in Song of Drums and Tomahawks if a combat can result in a figure being knocked down. If they are beaten a second time before they have a chance to clamber to their feet, they are knocked out of action. My rolls that night were definitely better than Allen's. At key moments, I knocked down his troops and then was able to activate another figure to finish it off.

    With his Skraeling bowmen hanging back, the chieftain in red moves forward to support his attack

Morale checks happen when a force falls below half, and Allen was teetering that direction. Soon, he had lost two both of his werewolves (the mighty bear fought on), all four spearmen, and Odin's priest. One more loss and he his force would test morale. The Skraeling chieftain took aim at the Viking warleader and was able to knock him down. The skinwalkers had already acted that turn, so it fell to a Skraeling brave to attempt to finish him off. He raced forward and used his flint knife to slice Olaf's throat as he tried to pull himself to his feet. A mighty roar went up from the tribe's warriors. Victory!

    Skinwalkers then began to attack the Viking warriors, hoping to get a gruesome kill and scatter them

Allen and I agreed to call the game at that point. He had just lost more than half his figures AND his leader, so would likely have men running for their lives at this point. The Skraelings had lost only the Puma. I was very careful about sending my Indians into the fray. The archers had stayed back as a firing line in close support of each other. The chieftain used the skinwalkers as a shield and shot his bow from behind their protection. The trio of skinwalkers stayed close to each other and cooperated well.

    Olaf the Fearless wades into the battle, and in a blow worthy of the Sagas, takes down the Puma

Despite the seeming one-sided nature of the battle, Allen and I had a lot of fun. I definitely think Song of Drums and Tomahawks works with mythical creatures thrown into the mix. I asked the others how their battles went, and they both seemed very close. The magical duel between Keith's native shamans and the freed-from-prison Salem witches was apparently a tightly-contest of wills. Everyone seemed to have fun, so not only was the evening a success, the playtest was off to a great start. Mike plans on running these games at Origins Game Fair in Columbus, June 19-23. So, we will doubtless see more evenings of tweaking the rules and crafting a competitive and fun convention game.

    Bear on bear and wolf on werewolf - the battle in the primeval American forest rages!

The miniatures were a mix of mine and Mike's. The mythical creatures were all his except for my Wendigo, which is a very creepy looking 3-D print from Thingiverse. I have picked up various Reaper Bones or other figures that will work for creatures from various tribes' mythologies. Mike seems intent on painting them up, so my contribution will likely remain either the rank and file or human heroes.

    After Olaf is knocked down by a Skinwalker, a brave native warrior rushes forward and finishes him

If everything goes well with the rules, Mike is interested in publishing an expansion book for this period. He wants to chat with Andrea Sfiligoi from Ganesha Games first, though. Ganesha and First Command Wargames cooperate closely on the "Song of Drums and Tomahawks" line of rules, so we want to make sure he's on board first, as well. So, look for more "Spirit World" games in the future...!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures purchased in 2024: 15
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 26

The Mummy, or should I say, "The Skeletons"?

 

French archeologist controlled by Mike S arrive at the door to King Tut's tomb

For a change of pace, Keith hosted a take-off of the modern, Brendan Fraser “The Mummy” movies. The game was set with the opening of King Tut’s tomb in the 1920s, but with competition between various European factions to be the first in the tomb. Keith was using Flying Lead rules from Ganesaha Games, with a generous helping of the fantasy Song of Blades and Heroes thrown in, too. Keith had picked up a bunch of painted skeletons last weekend at The Bookery in Fairborn, OH, and wanted an excuse to get them onto the tabletop.

The British archeologists peer through the doorway and see movement where there shouldn't be any...

With a big turnout — 1 GM and 7 players — we had four European factions and four “bad guy” factions — mostly skeletons. Allen started off with a force of Arab tomb looters, and was supposed to die off quickly and become the third skeleton command. However, his looters held off the Europeans for longer than anyone anticipated, which meant for the first part of the game the skeletons sat around like…well, they’d been sitting there for thousands of years!

Having guarded against tomb raiders for thousands of years, the Pharaoh's skeletal soldiers are ready to repel the incursion

Once the Europeans made it into the tunnels leading to the tomb, they were a little gun-shy about entering the complex. Several turns were spent with skeletons waiting to pounce on the Europeans as they entered the tomb, unable to pour out because of the “magic” involved. Eventually, Keith let the magic flow out the doors and we took the battle to them (I was playing a skeleton, along with newcomer Brett). Keith had thrown in special event cards, which chiefly had the effect of allowing the Europeans to interrupt or steal our actions when we rolled them. There was one glorious moment when I played my first, hard-won card (you received them only when you eliminated an enemy figure) and knocked down “The Moose”, one of the burly European raiders.

The first instinct of the Europeans was to try to stay at the door and shoot down the skeletons

Seven players in one game tends to make the action move a little slowly at times, and we ended up calling it quits just before 11 pm. Steve’s Chinese archeologists were close to breaking into Tut’s inner chambers. Mike S had moved his French into the same room, and was busy holding off the skeletons. My “rabble” skeletons were doing their best to hold off Joel and Mike W’s factions, though it would not be long before they broke past my weak command.

Once the Europeans entered the tomb complex the skeleton guards tried to swarm the doughty, well-armed archeologists

It was a different style of game, and was definitely fun once the Europeans entered the tomb complex. A little less preamble (and a little better rolling command rolls by the Europeans) might have produced a faster game that was fought to a conclusion. All in all, it was a good chance to get new figures and Keith’s new scratch-build dungeon complex on the tabletop!

Another Blast from the Past: Viking Turf Hall

28mm Viking Hall from Acheson Creations (with dragon heads on beams and shutters and doors added by me)

I've decided to "rescue" posts from my old Lead Legionaries blog -- especially ones that show great buildings or other terrain. Here's one on a Viking Turf Hall that I purchased from Acheson Creations way back in 2013:

So, this beauty is my payment for running my Viking Raid game at Origins. Well, essentially. I was given $60 in credit to be used either at restaurants, dealers, etc., to go with my weekend pass for running my game three times at Origins. This very large terrain piece by Acheson Creations is one of their pricier ones, and I was hemming and hawing about whether I wanted to pay $80 or not for it. When Acheson's convention rep, Bryan Borgman, stopped by my game I told him about my indecision. He offered to knock a bit off the price for me since I was using so many of his buildings in my game and urging all my players to visit his booth. I accepted Byran's offer and I now had two Viking buildings to use in my Dark Age skirmishes. 


The building represents a sod-covered Viking Hall -- a building technique that the Vikings employed both in Scandinavia and the British Isles. Rather than try to represent the color with different layers of dry brushing, I hit on the idea of using Woodland Scenics flocking for the sod. I began with my usual black spray paint and watered down black acrylic base coats. Then I did a wet brush (essentially a heavy dry brush) over the black using my earth red color I use as my ground. I then painted on straight white glue and sprinkled Woodland Scenics "Burnt Grass" on thickly. While it was still wet, I also sprinkled tiny patches of brown "turf" and "Blended Grass" to give it some depth. I am really happy with how it turned out, though I think I had too much glue run down the roof and collect on the edges giving the turf an almost liquid look. I'm honestly not sure what I could have done about that with the slope of the roof.

 

View of the interior of the 28mm Acheson Creations Viking Hall. The only thing I added here was trimming up and gluing down some craft sticks as logs in the firepit.

As it says on the caption above, I modified this Acheson building as well. I used the same Dragon "Toob" from Hobby Lobby and cut off the heads of the soft plastic dragons. I drilled a hole with a pin vice in the beams, glued in a straight pin with tacky glue. I drilled a hole in the soft plastic dragon head, too, and pressed it onto the trimmed down straight pin. I also used corrugated balsa wood to scratch build shutters for the windows. One is propped open and the other is closed. The same material was used to create a door.

This building will be a great centerpiece for a "Hall Burning" or similar type scenario. Like I said, it is a bit pricey compared to the deal that most Acheson buildings are, but it is a very large piece at 10" wide, 6" deep and 6" tall. At some point soon, I'll also be painting up my Acheson "boat-shaped grave mound" terrain piece I picked up at the same time. Other than that, I'm done for a little while with my Acheson terrain. I have more to do in my boxes -- ruined wall sections, a multi-section bridge (which can be used as a pier, as well),  and various other terrain pieces. But I'm going to take a break from it and fill out some holes in my 28mm Dark Ages troops. Up on my painting desk now are 12 Dark Age mounted warriors. I also need to do some unarmored Vikings for my campaign (all mine are armored ones), some monks, and maybe some more Dal Riatan Scots-Irish. My next big scratch building will be coming up soon, too. I'm going to do a Celtic monastery inspired by the UNESCO World Heritage site of Skellig Michael.

The Great Bacon Battle, Saxons vs. Vikings

    Vikings steal the Saxon village's pigs after driving off the local Saxon force in the center of the village

So, Steve V was requesting a Dark Ages skirmish on what could be his last gaming evening in awhile, so I threw together a quickie scenario. He wanted to try the format I'd used for my French & Indian War game at Advance the Colors last year. In this head-to-head format, I divide the table into one-on-one matchups using terrain. Players can move troops back and forth if they wish, and they make a collective decision on how to allocate their troops to the different scenarios. This version was much simpler, but still the same format.

    Mounted on a stolen horse, the Viking commander chases down a Saxon

In the middle board, I faced off against Steve V. I was the local Saxon eorl trying to keep the Vikings from bringing home our bacon (pig pen). The board consisted of numerous buildings -- most from Acheson Creations -- and the centerpiece, a scratch-built pig pen with three stands of meat on the hoof. To my left, Keith was trying to prevent the Viking warband commanded by Mike S from stealing horses to raid faster inland. On my right, Allen was racing to prevent the Vikings from looting the local monastery.

    Monks retreat to the chapter house and barricade the doors as the Viking raiders arrive. I think this is the first game my monastery made an appearance in...!

Each player commanded anywhere from 8 - 12 troops, including a leader. I modified the Song of Blades and Heroes rules to take out group moves. I figure that "units" don't exist when you're talking about so few men. It is a straight up, man-to-man skirmish at this level. I also eliminate the "Gruesome Kill" morale check rule. Honestly, this is the Dark Ages. ALL the kills are gruesome! And finally, I have warbands test morale each time they take an additional casualty once they fall below half. It doesn't make sense to me that units that troops might break when their casualties fall to half, but then ignore when they go to 1/3, 1/4, etc.

    Help arrives in time for the monks as the local Saxon leader interrupts the Viking looting and a fierce battle erupts

The games went VERY quickly. Keith and Mike had an incredibly bloody battle and the Saxon lord chased the Vikings off from his corral. I had my usual failures with activation rolls when I play the "Song of Blades" system, and Steve V took it to my Saxons quickly. We fought back, though, and reached the stage where the next player to lose a man would have to test morale (and have their troops scattered, likely). Unfortunately, I was the one to be that next player, and the Vikings were able to bring home the bacon in the center.

    Both commanders poured troops into the fray until the monastery was crowded with men fighting and dying

The battle over the monastery turned into quite the slugfest up amongst the monk's beehive huts and the stone chapter building. The Vikings go there first, but the Saxons arrived shortly after, preventing any looting. The battle degenerated into quite a wall-to-wall scrum, which the Saxon lord was able to win by entering the fray himself. Joel and Allen's game lasted longer than the others, but seemed like it was quite the battle royale.

The game got us pumped up for the Dark Age Britain campaign I'm planning on running for them once I get a few loose ends tied up here. The players suggested I modify what I've written to do games in this format, so I'll have to look into that. I think it is very doable, but I'll definitely need to change a few rules I've written.

As always, Song of Blades provides a fast, bloody game that is a good time.

"I Predict a Riot...!"

     Keith discusses the action in the game with Allen and Mike S. His ancient city tabletop is in the foregound.

My friend Keith was interested in another variant of the "Song of Blades and Heroes" engine from Ganesha Games that we use for many of our skirmish games. It is set in the ancient world and focuses on rioting in cities. So, he assembled a layout of a Mediterranean city from paper mache boxes and various other pieces. Since his ancient figures are still unfinished, Keith dusted off his 1/72 scale plastic medieval ones. Our riot was set in the Outremer -- the Crusader kingdom of the Middle East. A Byzantine tribune is visiting a city to woo the town elders over to supporting them. The Templars and the Normans of Tancred are not happy with this, and would like to capture the tribune -- or at worst, kill him.

There would be four players. Mike S controlled the tribune and his three bodyguards, Joel controlled the town militia, Allen the Templars, and I had the forces of Tancred. The victory conditions hinged on whether the Byzantine tribune made it through the city streets safely to his ship waiting to take him back to Constantinople. Unfortunately for the crusaders, the town militia was on his side, and we lost victory points for killing them. We also hated each other, and I got points for killing Templars, and vice versa. All of us controlled fairly small forces, and the table was also covered in ordinary citizens (who could be drawn into the fight), and a handful of stubborn, vicious mules.

    My Normans belonging to Tancred move towards the piers, hoping to reach the docks before the Byzantine tribune escapes

My sergeant and his four men-at-arms left our headquarters and raced to the piers to cut off the tribune from his escape. When we arrived their, the Templars had split their forces to flank the tribune. A couple militia archers had taken pot shots at the Templars. My archer thought it'd be funny to take a shot at the mule and spook him towards the militia, which actually worked to perfection (except that the militia man promptly brained the mule with his bowstave). A couple townsman began to mob the Templar, and one of my men went over to discomfort our rival (not attacking, but giving the Templar a negative modifier in his fight with the townsfolk). The Templar sergeant raced over to help his brother, and they both dispatched the rabble. Unfortunately, they did not see the humor in my ploy and promptly slew my man-at-arms. My archer took offense, and put an arrow in the eye slit of the Templar sergeant, which caused a momentary leaderless panic in the knights. My archer would prove to be my killer in this game, as he racked up several bullseyes on the enemy.

    My forces block off the alley leading to the piers. We find a Templar bowman and a militia archer engaged in an archery duel when we arrive.

With Allen's leader out of the fight, I had to step in and press an attack against the Byzantines and militia, or they'd overwhelm him and turn on me. The battle swelled to a four-way scrum in the center of the town. Things began to get hot for the tribune -- so much so he fled to the other side of the board to circle around behind us. When his bodyguards succumbed, the tribune fortunately failed a morale check which gave him a two-move scamper towards the boat. We all raced to the pier, where a lone mule blocked the tribune's path to the pier. With a flurry of blows and curses, the tribune recoiled the mule, opening his path. A templar raced towards him, coming up just short. My sergeant did the same, and also just missed engaging the tribune in combat. On Mike's next move, his tribune activated enough to run down the pier (screaming like a girl, I conjectured) and into the boat. We just missed bagging the bastard, and Mike was the clear winner of the game.

    All four players have forces converging on the main square of the city, as things get a bit hot for the Byzantine tribune's bodyguards

It was a fast-moving and fun variant of the system. "Rabble" types are dispatched when beaten in combat, and the modifiers make the archers a bit deadlier in this game. Either way, it'll be worthwhile entertainment to enter the world of riotous cities again, some evening...

    This little Byzantine piggy goes to the docks screaming "Weee, weee, weee" all the way home. Templars and Tancredis come up just short in their efforts to snag the tribune.

Medieval Monks

    28mm Medieval Monks from Old Glory. Doubtless, they will perish at the hand of many a Viking during my Dark Age Skirmish games...

I just finished painting up some 28mm medieval monks for my upcoming Pulp skirmish game....wait! What? Yes, even though the figures were purchased primarily for my Dark Ages skirmish games, I have a need for monks in my upcoming Pulp scenario. You see, it takes place at a Portuguese monastery in Macau in the 1930s, and monks being relatively conservative when it comes to dress and all...

These five figures were either unarmed ones or figures I converted to appear unarmed. The guy with the flail is meant to be threshing wheat. Of course, if a raiding Viking happens to get in between his flail and a sheaf of wheat, well, God will forgive him, I'm sure! These Old Glory figures have a lot of character. I particularly like the portly monk with the turkey leg and loaf of bread. My favorite, though, is the bare-handed one with his right fist raised. He looks like he's about to pound the table (or a brother monk) to make a particularly salient religious point. Although Old Glory sculpts vary in quality, I thought they did a very nice job on his face. They eyes look intense and the teeth and jaw show his emotion.

    One monk supervises while the other fleshes wheat with his flail. Figures are 28mm Old Glory.

The one holding the torch was a conversion, of course. It was a club in his left hand, but I snipped off enough of it, then added a cloth pom-pom. I know it is not the world's best flame, but it is passable, and players will understand what it is supposed to be. The flail is also a conversion. I chopped his club he was wielding two handed over his head and drilled out the hands. I slipped in a brass wire spear shaft. The metallic thresher is simply a left over bit of jewelry, and the chain is a spear tip with pennant shaved down, trimmed and twisted around. I also felt it came out so-so. No conversions were done to the one with the gold cross clutched to his chest. I like how his bald head came out with the dry brushing and ink wash.

So, all things going well, these medieval figs will see their first action as "extras" in my first Pulp scenario this coming Sunday. Each will be one of the five clues, or "Plot Points", that the players need to obtain to locate the information source they're looking for. Hopefully, the game will turn out well -- or at least as well as these guys came out...!

Ambush the Caravan!

    

So, in honor of getting his basement gaming area cleaned up again and ready to host, my friend Keith ran an impromptu fantasy miniatures battle scenario this past Sunday. The rules were Song of Blades and Heroes -- one of our favorites. They provide for a quick game. The flow is unpredictable and player decisions have a big impact on the course of the battle.

Keith's scenario has a supply column of dwarves escorting a dissembled artillery piece needed to reduce an orc fortress passing through a narrow valley. For warbands composed of goblins, orcs, and uruk-hai have combined to block its progress. Allen, Mike S and myself were the Orcs, while Keith, Joel, and Steve V were the dwarves. We set up to hit the dwarves from all four sides, but ran into some snags along the way.

Our first problem was that both of the forces on the opposite side of the road from where my uruk-hai set up suffered horrible activation rolls and ended up stalled. Allen's "Hee-Hee" goblins received their nickname from the giggles that their leader received from the pack when he ordered them to advance. The mass of them hung back, only to expose their leader to dwarven crossbows. Mike S's Orcs gave my uruk-hai a head fake, leading the charge on the front of the caravan, only to hang back and lob long-range arrows at the dwarves.

 

My force and Allen's other Orc warband crashed into the dwarves and had some initial success. However, as no second wave hit, the dwarves shifted troop reinforcements over and outmanned us at the point of attack. Allen's Orcs were running back across the hill and my uruk-hai were edging backwards when we finally called it.

Thanks for running the game, Keith...it was fun to return to the basement abode...!

28mm Dark Ages mounted warriors finally finished!

So this unhappy few, this mounted half dozen, have been sitting partially-painted on my desk for a month, now. I was pretty far along with them when I made the decision to do my French & Indian War clifftops that you see in the previous post (Ohio Frontier Aflame at Advance the Colors 2013). The cliffs so consumed my time that these guys ended up just sitting on my desk.

 

However, with ATC 2013 and a successful series of games run there concluded, I was ready to finish them off. I picked up most of these figures from a flea market vendor selling 28mm Foundry incredibly cheap. They were meant to be able to be used as generic mounted warriors for my Dark Age Britain skirmishes. So, I wanted them to be equally usable for mounted Vikings, Britons, Picts, Saxons -- you name it. Two of the figures were not Foundry, and are Alternative Armies figures I've had sitting in my box for years. I knew one day I'd progress beyond just foot figures in my games to include mounted ones. 

 

The real reason they made it to the forefront is I plan to run a skirmish campaign for my Sunday night gaming group. They have all chosen one of six factions -- Saxon, Briton, Pict, Dal Riatan Scot, Danish Viking and Norse Viking. Each faction has a "special ability," and the Briton one is to be able to substitute a percentage of their force as mounted. Thus, no games could be run until I have the mounted figures ready for it...! 

 

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how these guys turned out. Some I like better than others, of course. All of the shields and the one banner are hand painted (as you can probably tell..!). I particularly like how the horses turned out. I have a page I downloaded from the internet long ago which illustrates different breeds of horses. I decided that since these are in 28mm, I need to do more than paint a generic brown horse, gray one, etc. I think it makes the horses' coloring look much more realistic.

 

Next up are seven 28mm provincial troops for my French & Indian War games. I was inspired by how well my games went at ATC 2013 last weekend. My new format for running big scenarios worked like a dream. The only drawback was that meant I am using up pretty much all my miniatures in an 8 player game. If I have any dreams of increasing the number of players, that means I need more figures. I know, I know. What a horrible dilemma for a miniature wargamer...! So, I dug through my unpainted stuff and cleaned and primed a batch up. I expect I will also be putting in another order with Conquest Miniatures -- who makes the Indians I use. I love their figures to death. They are reasonably priced, gorgeously done, and have very active poses.

 

Also in the planning stages are buildings for my 28mm Pulp games. I want to set my scenarios in southeast Asia, with Indiana Jones wannabees digging through ruins like those at Bagan, Angkor, Borobudur, etc.