Arkham Horror Bureau.

Another work in progress that hopefully will get finished now the long dark of Greenwich Mean Time has descended on hallowed Albion.

The beauty of this project is its low cost, the only cash outlay has been for lacquer & brass work. The mahogany comes from a stack of old office furniture that had been thrown out at the outward bound centre up the road. Hope Cthulhu appreciates my efforts in saving the planet.

Inquisitor Miniatures. Xenos & Bad Guys.

A follow up to my earlier post, this time two alien races & the lurking evil that is the Genestealers:

The Kroot. One of the more interesting Xenos in the 40K milieu.

Eldar Ranger

Fantastic sculpt of the Needlegun. Moorcock & Hawkwind would be proud.

Genestealer Cultist scratch built using tech priest body & right arm with hybrid conversion kit.

Genestealer.

Genestealer Hybrid, again converted figure using GW bits.

When I painted this miniature I was the proud owner of a pair of urban camo trousers just like these.

Really must break out some terrain & game with these again, time as ever is my enemy. Tempus fugit, sic vitae.

Inquisitor Miniatures from the "Evil" Empire.

I know that Games Workshop get constantly trashed on world wide web and probably elsewhere for that matter; but if it weren't for them I'd never have got into tabletop gaming or roleplaying at all. Over the years I've owned a large amount of their products and for the most part enjoyed gaming with them, particularly those that are now consigned to the limbo of the Specialist games range; Necromunda, Gorka Morka, Mordheim et al. The last of these that I bought into in a big way was Inquisitor, a skirmish game set in the Warhammer 40K universe. What particularly drew me in were the large scale miniatures produced for the game, on reflection I seem to remember spending more time assembling & painting the miniatures rather than gaming with them and to be honest I'm rather glad of the fact because I don't think they would have stood up to much rough handling.
Here they are in their Baroque glory:

Slick Devlin, my least favourite of the miniatures just not fond of that loincloth.

Daemon Huntress.

Space Marine, great miniature but really top heavy.

Inquisitor Eisenhorn, my favourite of the lot.

And finally a pair of servo skulls.

Theres a few more of these somewhere in the house which I'll drag out & post later on. This has got me thinking about investing in some of Fantasy Flight Games 40K roleplaying stuff but given my already limited free time buying into another rpg I won't have time to run may not be the best use of money.

Another Cthulhu Sunday.

A decent day spent in the company of Messrs Bryant & Johnson, or at least their alter egos detectives Proctor & Esterhazy of the Shanghai Municipal Police.

This time the intrepid duo are prevailed upon to act in the interests of a senior member of the Chinese underworld which by chance dovetails with a current official case, the grisly murder of a local condiment magnate.
Things initially proceed smoothly for the pair with their investigations leading them to the tramp steamer which a murderous foreign gang & their supernatural allies are using as a base of operations. At this point instead of handing the affair over to the correct authorities Proctor & Esterhazy wing it using local gang muscle and despite a favourable outcome manage to alienate their official employers, certainly to the detriment of any further advancement in the police force.

This is the first time I've run this particular scenario & to be brutally honest it showed. Things started off with the social interaction & investigation part of the session running smoothly enough. Where it did fall apart was the grand finale, the ship. This really was an absolute balls up on my part, making as I did  several cardinal errors. Firstly I assumed that the players would pursue a certain course of action when tackling the ship despite having made other options available for them. Secondly the ship that I chose had a poor layout for a tense denouement , one that led to an unfortunate stalemate that I hadn't anticipated. Thirdly I tried to wing it when things started to unravel & made a complete fuck up of it mainly because I had failed to prepare sufficient contingency plans, probably the most serious failing of all.
In many ways the day was a useful exercise, at some point in the future I hope to publish my Call of Cthulhu Shanghai scenarios in some form and ironing out these wrinkles is an important part of realising this dream. On the other hand I do want my players to enjoy themselves and not waste a day helping me sort out some crappy self inflicted problems.
Despite the slight balls toward the end I think we had a good day, plenty of off game chat, cups of tea & a decent lunch so not a complete disaster after all