The speed of a T-Rex

When hunting big game, it pays to wear sporting apparel to ease sprinting...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6956867.stm

Or you can stand fast and take it like a man of course!

Science vs Pluck

Anything that says: Tea and buttered scones should be available at all times, stronger spirits only after noon has got to be at least OK in my book, so I present this yahoo group to you here:

‘Science Vs Pluck’ is a game of the Sudan wars set at a ‘generalship’ level; in which players portray officers in the service of Queen or Khedive, and seek to solve a variety of problems posed by the enemy, the harsh terrain and climate and, indeed, their own orders. All the participants serve together in, one would hope, some degree of cooperation, while one or more umpires, control the wild Sudanese foe-men, other Imperial officers and their, troops, and the universe in general. A distinct degree of role-playing is required; players are expected to devote themselves to behaving in a properly ‘Victorian’ manner, while the umpire will ensure that his own dramatic performances of fellow Britons, Arab merchants, Syrian interpreters and suitably obsequious ‘other ranks’ are appropriately Kiplingesque.

http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/ScienceVersusPluck/

Wheel Tank

This hybrid vehicle, shown in the livery of the White Russians, is another quality product by Vanvlak Industries:

The BK-1 Pillbug Rotary Tank

One of the less well-known tractor designers in American history, Charles ‘Cop’ Keiston was a brilliant innovator who lost out to Holt for lack of funding. Apocryphal industrial legend tells how despairing of ever finding a cost-effective method of fabricating reliable track links, Keiston was toying with a wooden model of an idler wheel when this rolled away and trundled over his work bench, scattering toy soldiers left there by his nephew. The inspired designer reinvented his concepts and came up with a tractor which was driven by one man in a fixed cabin, with an engine mount at the rear driving a huge cast wheel surrounding the driver and engine compartments. The ingenious transmission and clutch systems which drove the machine were installed in a wooden mock up, called ‘The Pillbug’. Traction of farm implements would be achieved by means of fixed trace brackets on either side of the rotating hull of the machine.

The wooden demonstrator was successfully presented at the Tanksarusse State Fair, where it attracted a lot of attention but no sales. This successful demonstration drew the attention of financier Tobias Butler, who realised the machine (...as intended) had military potential. Within a week the Butler-Keiston Manufacturing Company had been registered, and the first metal tractor, the BK-1, called, like the prototype, the Pillbug, trundled across the Tanksarussee grassland five months later.

Appearing late for WWI, the new rotary tank was lacking a market. The redoubtable Butler approached Russian financiers, and through them sold four of the Pillbugs to the White Russian forces. Intending to use the Russian Civil War as a proving ground, both Butler and Keyston embarked with their vehicles in March 1919. Little is known about the performance of the BK-1. Non-rotating side sponsons were fitted to the sides of the hull in Russia, armed either with a pair of light machine guns, or with a single light cannon of unknown calibre on one sponson and a machine gun or the other.


Although the tanks took part in some skirmishes, the well-designed drive and clutch systems were beset by troubles in the cold, dusty or muddy Siberian environment, and lacking maintenance and spares, the little tanks fell one by one into disuse. At least one was however successful in supporting White troops attacking a Red troop train on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Plagued by clutch slip problems, however, the Pillbugs were soon abandoned as they became prone to gyration: the sponsons and crew compartment would start to rotate along the wheel, resulting in loss of control and a very dizzy crew.

Keiston, involved in one of these incidents, gave up his plans and returned to America to become the successful founder of a toy industry. Butler disappeared late in 1919; it was rumoured that angered by the plight of civilians tormented by the less sympathetic White commanders, he switched sides, and for some time there was mention of ‘Red Butler’ in the more volatile American West Coast press.

One of the tanks disappeared without trace; a second is rumoured to survive hidden away in a Siberian barn. The other two were sold for scrap, although one of these was preserved for some years in Kursk prior to its ultimate fate. Leading an attack against a beleaguered Red strongpoint, the tank suffered clutch slip and rolled down a hill crushing a White Cossack charge, to become the sole recipient of the Tractor-Tank-Hero of the People Star.

Greetings Gentlemen

First Off I'd like to thank Sir Paul

for the invitation to join your

select group of adventurers!

I hope that our collaborations

will provide us all with much

to add to our respective journals!

Well enough idle chit chat, lets

brake camp and see what's over

the next hill......

Don M

Carnivorous Plants Part II

Thanks to all the chaps who so kindly directed me to other sources of man-eating members of the Plant Kingdom!

QRF have a range of '15mm' scale (Actually standing about 17-18mm tall) plants, various types including spine shooters, stranglers and grapplers.

Link here:
http://quickreactionforce.co.uk/catalog/index.php/cPath/24_55_347

It would also seem that Armorcast arent quite as OOP as I originally thought - Ive always loved the "Medium Man-trap."

Link here:
http://armorcast.com/store/index.php?cPath=37&osCsid=4863b353c22ab8a224c7407bee80cd0d

Hydra Miniatures also have their new "plant men" - just the thing for Venus I think!

Link here:
http://shop.hydraminiatures.com/product_info.php?cPath=3_30&products_id=39&osCsid=2b63e53e3f02df2e87594a0a57c804aa

The 'Mouth-arm' by Emperor Miniatures reminds me a lot of the nasties at the bottom of the crevice in the new King Kong movie


Link here:

http://empcho.bizhosting.com/moutharmmini.html

Fenryll offers these nasty looking pot-plants:

Link here:
http://www.fenryll.com/en/miniature-442.html

Link here:
http://www.fenryll.com/en/miniature-439.html

And Kilroy Industries has these nice looking 'spider' plants

Link here:
http://home.insightbb.com/~kilroy07/products/alienplants/alien_plants.htm

Enjoy!

Carnivorous Plants

I'm currently scanning for some vegetative nasties to inhabit Venus/the Lost World/Skull Island etc




Here are some nice looking ones from the Wargames Supply Dump and at 1pund each the price is nice enough to make a small forest of them! Though there are 25mm scale, who says carnivorous trees have to be small? So these would be quite acceptable carnivorous trees for my 15mm Dinosaur Hunters



http://www.wargamessupplydump.co.uk/specials.htm





HLBS also sells some man-eating plants, this time Triffids (shown here) and again in 28mm. Watch out or that stinger could knock over one's crystal decanter!
http://www.wargamessupplydump.co.uk/specials.htm


Any more out there? I know Amourcast used to do some lovely ones in resin but they are sadly now discontinued...

15mm Dirigible

I grabbed one of these at Toys R Us yesterday - its a movie toy from "The Golden Compass" which I think will make a superb 15mm scale Dig! A gondola, a paint job and some inevitable steampipe work and gubbins and she will be ready to take to the air!




Maybe I need a couple more now I think about it...
Didnt find the aerial galley behind it, but that has loads of potential too!

More Tooth and Claw discussion

Its seems that Chris Peer's new Tooth and Claw rules are stirring up some controversy at TMP...

Link here:
http://theminiaturespage.com/news/talk/msg.mv?id=17238

New 15mm VSF pics

"Thunderchicken" has posted pics of his great 15mm VSF figs. German Powertruppen, Arc-light Electric Cannon, Steam walkers and Blimps: You'll find them all here!

Thunderchicken's Arclight Electric Cannon:

This beauty is quite powerful but very dangerous to use.

Gun is from the QRF WWI range, figures are Peter Pig.

I used cut down wall plugs for the electric generator.

Thunderchicken's Displaced Miniatures page is here: http://www.displacedminiatures.com/Thunderchicken/images.html?galleryId=2529&from=15mm+VSF

and you can find the thread on his work at Lead Adventure Forums here: http://forum.backofbeyond.de/viewtopic.php?p=37258#37258

Battle in the Clouds: The Airship Destroyer (1909)

Thanks to an absolutely top-hole spiffing chap named Roger, this classic aeronef action film is now available for download!

Roger emailed me to let me know he had a copy then ripped it to mpeg format for all to enjoy.

Each of us should stand that man a drink!


The movie is available for download here: http://www.4shared.com/file/30890666/85821b8b/The_Airship_Destroyer_aka_Battle_in_the_Clouds_1909.html
Thanks very much indeed Roger - Huzzah!!!

Tooth and Claw:the RPG

Not, not the recently released rules by Chris Peers, this one is an RPG by Jared Sorensen

The author's website says:

Tooth & Claw is an adventure roleplaying game where the characters are dinosaurs living on a vast super-continent. It uses die pools based on size and age and has lots of real science built into the dinosaur creation system. I'd like to revisit this one day as a lavishly-illustrated game for kids. http://www.memento-mori.com/other/

The PrehistoricPulp Blog says:

Usually roleplaying games let you play as humans fighting dinosaurs. Tooth & Claw is the only one I know that lets people play as dinosaurs.

Tooth & Claw is nothing fancy. It's simply a set of rules for creating dinosaur characters and roleplaying them. There are no illustrations and it lacks flashy page design, having been cranked out on a word processor. The author writes that originally the game was to be published by a game company in 2001, but that never happened. The version he ultimately released was written in a single night so he could enter it into a gaming competition, where it won third place.

It's not a bad effort if you're looking for a rules-lite RPG. Tooth & Claw leaves it up to players to decide how realistic they want to make the game. If they want their dinosaurs to talk, no problem. If they want their dinosaurs to communicate only through grunts and body language, no problem. The rules themselves just give some basics for building dinosaurs with tail spikes, or horns, or enlarged toe claws, or pointy teeth. You could use the rules to build a Triceratops, or make up something completely new and not in the fossil record.

The game uses a dice-pool system in which players role a certain number of six-sided dice and try to get as many in sequence as possible, starting with 1. So, for example, say you role four dice and get 1, 2, 4, 5. You have two successes because 1 and 2 are in sequence. The 4 and 5 don't count because you must start with 1. The more successes you have, the more likely you are to accomplish a task or win a challenge. Positive traits let you role larger numbers of dice or let you start sequences with higher numbers than 1.

Most players will probably welcome the simplicity. Hard-core gamers who thrive on statistic complexity and ultra-realism will hate it. Tooth & Claw is a nice, easy game if you have a few dinosaur nuts at your house and you're looking for something other to do than play Monopoly. Plus it's only a $3 download at RPGnow, so it's hardly going to bankrupt you if you don't like it.

http://prehistoricpulp.blogspot.com/2007/09/tooth-claw-by-jared-sorensen-2003.html

Google Mars

This is a new project by Google Labs; you can use it to view some of the most detailed maps of Mars created by NASA scientists. Select between visible and IR, show elevations or other terrain features.

This will be excellent for mapping areas for Redcoats to explore and claim in the name of Her Britannic majesty!

http://www.google.com/mars/

Festive Season Expeditions

Christmas is almost here, and so are the the kids' holidays. Which means its time once again to rope them (willingly) into my Hobby with some pod racing, godzilla fights and the odd Dinosaur hunt!


I love dino hunting rules, but am thinking of making it a little more kid friendly by cobbling together bits and peices from a few rules sets (in true wargamer fashion!!) including Saurian Safari, TUSK, the Skull Island gamers, Jimland and Bob Beatties rules.


I need something that:

• Captures and retains imagination of kids under 10
• Is simple but has lots of player involvement (7 and 10 year old so simple rules mechanics are a must)
• I can half-play and half-GM
• Has excitement vice realism...without killing ALL the players too quickly!

Thus I thought a combination of the terrain that builds as you go (asper Bob Beatties rules - I really like the way he starts with an emptytable and the players explore as they go), the Skull island encounter system which has a bit more detail by terrain type than Saurian safari,b ut the combat system I am still unsure of. The Skull Island card-flipping idea could work well, and still leaves lots of dice rollingfor other stuff. I thought also perhaps of taking more 'extras' along so the parties last a little longer...

How to build a 15mm Colonial Nile gunboat

Truly a multipurpose vehicle, useful on the Nile River, the canals of Mars, the shallow lakes of Venus or for Dinsoaur Safari Adventures!

http://www.wfhgs.com/PDFFILES/gunboat.pdf

Cryptomundian references:

I found this interesting online bookshop in the UK which seems to have interesting titles for those doing their research aiming to bag a unique trophy on their next safari!

For instance: The Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology


On every continent and in every nation, animals unrecognized by modern science are reported on a daily basis. People passionately pursue these creatures - the name given to their field of study is cryptozoology. Coined in the 1950's, the term literally means the science of hidden animals. When the International Society of Cryptozoology (ISC) was formed in 1982, the founders declared that the branch of science is also concerned with "the possible existence of known animals in areas where they are not supposed to occur (either now or in the past) as well as the unknown persistence of presumed extinct animals to the present time or to the recent past...what makes an animal of interest to cryptology is that it is unexpected." Presenting a "flesh and blood" view of cryptozoology, this reference work excludes discussion of mysterious zoological phenomena. Here, 2,744 entries are listed, the majority of which each describe one specific creature or type of creature. Those entries cover creatures that have been reported from an extremely wide variety of locations worldwide, and throughout recorded history.Other entries cover 742 places where unnamed cryptids are said to appear; profiles of 77 groups and 112 individuals who have contributed to the field; descriptions of objects and events important to the subject; and essays on cryptotourism and hoaxes, for example. Appendices offer a timeline of zoological discoveries, annotated lists of movies and television series with cryptozoological themes, a list of crypto-fiction titles and a list of Internet websites devoted to cryptozoology.

http://forteantimes.tbpcontrol.co.uk/TBP.Direct/PurchaseProduct/OrderProduct/CustomerSelectProduct/SearchProducts.aspx?d=forteantimes&s=C&r=10000092&keywordSearch=cryptozoology&productGroupId=2