The Adventures of UNIT...

Members of UNIT are called to investigate a strange object that has appeared overnight in a Sussex field...


















Sergeant Benton, clutching his Galvanic Projector, approaches the alien device, while Old Jeb looks on warily...



















Are you sure that's a good idea, Commadore Lethbridge-Stewart?



















The Commadore suddenly remembers an important engagement he must attend in Godalming...



















Re-establishing order, a stand-off ensues...

WIP shots of my various forces

Apologies for the bad lighting, but in the end I figure that bad photos are probably better than no photos.

This was the state of my painting tray about 3 or 4 months ago, round about mid-May. Since then very little has happened (a few arms glued on, that sort of thing) but hopefully more will occur this weekend (and it'll be months before the pics surface, probably...)

First up are the members of UNIT - the Uniformed Naval Infantry Territorials - who will sport rifleman green uniforms and khaki Glengarry caps, as a nod to the 'classic' look of UNIT in 1970s episodes of Dr Who, as modelled by the second and third chaps in the first column. Part of the point of the photo was to demonstrate the relative lack of poses with the Wargames Factory figures. Two Body types, and two rifle positions, and two head designs, means 8 basic figures. There are a couple of 'loading' arms, and I've used one to make a chap actually loading his rifle (I can never remember if these are Lee-Mitfords or Martini-Henries) and another I've used to give the sergeant an alien or future-technology weapon.




Close up of the UNIT sergeant (Sergeant Benton, I did think of making him Petty Officer Benton but then decided that he could have a Royal Marine rank instead) with his 'Galvanic Projector' AKA lightning gun (AKA laser rifle, though the concept makes no sense in the late 19th century). It's bodged from two bits of sprue, and yeah, maybe it looks it. Never mind, these are toys for playing games with.


Some of my Victorian characters in various states of paintiness - the first two columns are all from Ironclad, third column is Westwind and fourth is Artizan. I tried to show how they all look next to each other but it doesn't work very well.

Martian Wars, 1881-1927

This is my overall scheme of warfare in the late 19th-early 20th century that underlies my VSFery. Of course, I reserve the right to change any and all details as I see fit...

The 'First Martian War', 1881; Martian Invasion of Earth (this is the War of the Worlds incident, lasting a couple of months)

'Second Martian War', 1886-1895; Earth nations, particularly British (as they have best access to Martian technology and eventually start to work out interplanetary travel) invade Mars - this is a colonial scramble leading to diferent competing zones of influence and control, but is fairly short-lived as war is hard to sustain at such a distance and colonies continue to slowly develop

'Third Martian War', 1909-16; this is more of a series of space-battles, between the Aether Fleets of Britain and Russia versus France and Austria (and allies of all of these) for control of the aether between Earth and Mars, and over territorial rights in outlying parts eg the Asteroid Belt

'Fourth Martian War', 1921-27; Re-invasion by Britain of Mars, to combat Franco-Austrian gains, but both Russian and Austrian ('The Astro-Hungarian Empire') zones (especially in the Asteroid Belt) are in revolt.

Now, what's happening on Venus in this time is...

The Ruritanian Succession, Part 1

Well, now, how will this work? According to the 'history' we have, Flavia is the last reigning monarch of Ruritania - at least, the last we know about, up to the end of 'Rupert of Hentzau'*. I'm not counting Haythorne's 'The Strelsau Dimension' (1981), Simon Hawke's 'The Zenda Vendetta (Time Wars 4)' (1985) or Spurling's 'After Zenda' (1995), partly because I've never read any of them, and partly (at least in Hawke's and Spurling's cases), because it's not 'our' Ruritania, being variously in the Balkans and Carpathians. Haythorne gets Ruritania in more or less the right place it seems. Maybe worth picking that one up from somewhere.

WIP shot of random Artizan Texas Ranger (painted as generic cowboy) with Westwind Tsarina, Tsar and Zendarian Vampire Hunter; aka, in this context, Queen Flavia, her potential cousin Albert (of Molvania? Of Graustark? Of Strackenz?) and Kolonel von Sanf-und-Schinkel

There's a non-canonical Holmes & Watson story called 'The Seven Percent Solution' by Nicholas Meyers (1974). This sets the action of 'Zenda' in 1891. An additional possibility is a book that I've only just discovered called 'Sherlock Holmes and the Hentzau Affair' by David Stuart Davies(2007). Curioser and curioser...

And there's always 'Royal Flash' by George MacDonald Fraser of course.

Anyway, at the moment there's little we know about the Ruritanian monarchy after the death of Rudolf V (who is, as we now know, Rudolf Rassendyll). Flavia continues to rule; some time later 'Rupert of Hentzau' is published. Finding the gap in time between 'Prisoner' and 1898 (publication of 'Rupert of Hentzau') is something of a matter of taste.

Fritz von Tarlenheim relates the story to his son, of whom there is no hint in the novel: we are left with the impression that the events of 'Prisoner of Zenda' take place some 14 years or more before the time of writing 'Rupert of Hentzau'. If, as we may suspect, publication of Fritz's memoir was swift, we may believe it was written around 1897; if Fritz's son had not been born at the time (as seems reasonable), the events of 'Hentzau' would be around 1886 at the latest (though of course, they could have been several years earlier). The latest date for 'Zenda' is thus c1883. The only times that they must post-date are the building of the railway line from Dresden to Strelsau (around 1840 - actually, having checked this, the first part of the line from Dresden to Prague was opened in 1848), 1848 (when riots burn down the White Palace in Strelsau) and 1852 (the Second Empire in France; Rassendyll has an 'Imperial' beard of a style fashionable in France after this period).

So at some point after 1852, and before 1883, the events of 'Zenda' take place. After that is where it gets tricky.






*However, both PG Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh refer to an 'ex-King of Ruritania' who works as a doorman at Barribault's Hotel. As Waugh is also a source for the Royal Corps of Halberdiers (of which more to come) and the Loamshire Regiment, as well as other fictional regiments; and Wodehouse is the source for things that definitely exist in the 1920s yet to come, their credentials check out. So we know that there must have been another ruler of Ruritania after 1898. Either a new husband for Flavia (seems unlikely, frankly) or some distant cousin, perhaps? What about some relative descended from Osra's brother (Henry? The one who left anyway), or perhaps from the House of Graustark even?

Orc does some painting shock, no pictures not so much of a shock

Well, this month I actually managed some painting. Unfortunately as far as my current list of projects goes, it wasn't my gaming stuff I was painting.

Firstly, a 1:1 scale terrain project, to whit, the house. Redecorating upstairs has meant 1-any paintbrush I've been using has been far too big for minis, and 2-all my gaming stuff is currently in boxes in the loft. Curse you nice looking house!

Secondly, and somewhat more congenially, because it was outside on a sunny day with my friend Lyracian, I spent a very pleasant Thursday afternoon undercoating 50 rather funky Mantic undead (see the whole Mantic range at their site here), as the fulfillment of a birthday promise - having been skint at the time of Lyracian's birthday, and as he had a Tyrannid army in need of painting, I gave him a token entitling him to an afternoon painting session. A few months later and he's moved on from 'nids to skeletons, but never mind, I finally got to help him turn some lead (or rather plastic) into slightly-more-painted plastic. Hopefully, he'll finish them soon and put the results up on his blog (Tales of a Gamer, somewhere over on the left...)

Yet another month or more goes by...

...and an odd six weeks or so it's been since my last update.

A couple of days after I last posted, my friend Rob Marriott died suddenly. An artist, a gamer and a thoroughly nice bloke (as well as a maker of a fine cup of tea), Rob was also, through his insistence that I should play Warmachine, the guy that turned me on to the lovely minis produced by Privateer.

Thus, in a very real way, Rob is one of the inspirations for this blog, because it was in part my conversations with him about minis and gaming in general that lead to me kicking around the ideas that became the genesis of 'Rivets and Whimsy', and pretty directly the Warmachine minis have been an influence on my thinking about Victorian gaming, technology and aesthetics - hence some pics of them on this very page.

I never did play Warmachine with him, and I will always regret missing that opportunity. Farewell, Rob, I hope you're having a blast wherever you might be now.

Things and stuff

Well, May has almost departed us and hardly has my paintbrush touched paint in the last 6 weeks or so, such have been the demands of what I laughingly refer to as 'real life'.



Here is a little teaser for what will be coming up over the next few weeks (I hope) - actually it's an old WIP shot of my much-talked-about but rarely seen Colonel Hammond-Mustard, who also doubles as one of my Ruritanian officers.

He's one of the leaders in my GASLIGHT force that I'm slowly assembling; which brings me on to the new GASLIGHT Compendium - I'm hoping to get it as soon as the hard copy is out; the PDF is already available from many a reputable online retailer.

I have managed to find another unit I can add to my forces - either pro- or anti-British, I'm not sure yet. But I managed to pick up a game called "Impact" (in fact I got the expansion, "Impact - Battle for Wolf Ridge" as well) from a local charity shop. It's a funny game, there are various spring loaded weapons in the sets, and missile fire is resolved by actually firing little rubber-tipped bullets and knocking your opponents' models over; hand-to-hand is handled similarly to chess or draughts or something. But never mind, it's the figures I was after.




Within, as well as about 15 humans and some robots, armed with futuristic weaponry, there were also about 20 dino-lizardy types, mostly with weird rifles. The humans will no doubt see service for my sci-fi gaming, but the lizards might make a nice substitute for the ubiquitous Kroot Parrotmen of Cytheria that everyone seems to be doing.





There are about 15 Lizardmen similar to this, including a couple with smaller weapons. Also included in the Lizardman force were 4 larger more dino-like models with shoulder-mounted 'missile launcer' type heavy weapons, very odd affairs that seem to be made out of some kind of animal. Whether I use them as enemies or allies (perhaps Venusian Lizardmen Sepoys, for instance), or both, is yet to be decided. They may even be found on Atlantis, I suppose. I might even be able to do an entire Atlantean engagement, Lizardmen v. Morlocks, that would be fun.




Seen here with an Ironclad Brit for scale, they seem to be fine (size-wise at least). Maybe some repainting might be in order, but frankly as I'm rubbish at painting perhaps I shouldn't bother.