Saturday 4 September 2021

Pulp Afrika Korps

 I have now assembled, painted and based all the Afrika Korps figures from one sprue of four (plus the separate command. RT operator base) that come in the Perry plastic box set. I think there are about twelve figures and that this is probably enough to add to a couple of characters to create a Nazi Tropical team (I may expand into other geographical areas, who knows where the spirit of the Papilon will lead me...!) Next up will be some of the recently recruited Oriental infantry (as I have 50 odd and only need ten or twelve per team, the Japanese infantry may be repurposed as various Asiatic teams...Warlord Chinese etc - as well as the nation they are intended to represent). 

First up, all the newly completed figures together

Well that was random - for the first time in months, Blogger took it upon herself to re order the images so that, in the words of the Bible, the last shall be first and the first shall be last....I have taken the first and put them back where they belong but as for the remainder, it doesn't really matter what order they are in.....



Anti tank rifleman - he may not play often, I am not sure how much use his weapon will be in a non vehicular skirmish game...


Kneeling infantryman in cork helmet with KAR 98


Advancing wearing short boots and bloused trousers


Advancing with MP36 and wearing laced up knee boots and riding style breeches


Two more advancing riflemen in the earliest tropical uniform



Firing MP36 wearing "Afrikamutze" field cap and bloused trousers


As previous but advancing with KAR 98


Firing MG34 crew both wearing the Afrikamutze uniform

For something slightly different, most will know that here in NZ, we are currently in a strict lockdown to hopefully contain and eliminate an outbreak of Covid Delta. I have had the pleasure of being roped in to helping "in the field" as we have had quite a number of our courier contractors off word in self isolation after visiting locations of interest - fortunately, it has been beautiful spring weather here most of the last fortnight so on each occasion I have "played courier" it has been quite a pleasant experience


A reminder of pre covid times - that last meal out with my wife a few weeks ago - a local eatery has created a Big Mac Pizza using wagyu beef mince and including all the usual ingredients, lettuce, tomato and the signature pink sauce - it really does taste like the original. The beer was good too!


My colleague holding one of the "essential" items we delivered last week!


A small portion of freight awaiting delivery in my home town of Pukekohe


One of our contractors with another load of essential freight


Ministry of Education packs for kids to do school work from home, sorted by street in one suburb. This is all for one contractor to deliver so I took one street worth (about 50 items) and spent an afternoon walking down this street (below) first delivery at no 3 the last was no 113 (the very last house in the street). 


Hope all is well wherever you are - we have obviously had a rather distressing incident occur here yesterday which I am sure is hitting the headlines wherever you read this. Hopefully all the injured make a full recovery and the nutbar who caused the mayhem has already been dealt with by the NZ police, so we wont have to worry about a costly trial or putting him in prison - pity they had not done the same with the Mosque shooter in Christchurch!

32 comments:

  1. Nice DAK and thanks for choosing sun helmets for some. So cool but so rarely seen. Keep on truckin' your lockdown will get better soon.

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    1. Thanks Joe. I like the sun helmets too and makes them look a bit more pre war, mid Thirties a la Indiana Jones - which is what I am looking for! Yes we only have 20 new cases of Delta today, down from a high of 70 - 80 per day, so hopefully we will see an alert level change soon.

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  2. Great looking project. Love a idea of pulp WWII 0!

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    1. Thanks Michal - you never know, I might end up with some fantasy type monsters or demons to populate my Pulp games!

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    2. Yes.... embrace the dark (fantasy) side......!!
      (And you know I have many of those:))
      (Could I have any of the spare heads/weapons from the DAK?)

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    3. Hi Andrew - yes indeed - you have all those kick starter weird and wonderful monsters etc! I will email you re spare parts

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  3. Those DAK look great. Nice mix of headgear

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    1. Thanks Neil, I do like the cork helmets, I must say!

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  4. Lovely stuff. You are going to need an Egyptian mummy or two as well I suspect… along with a BMW motorbike and side car combo, Horch staff car, incongruously leather coated SS or Gestapo figure…etc. Once that butterfly bites it takes a while to let go, lol. Good to see you doing deliveries. Where I am in a west Wales there’s nothing to actually deliver. Half of our supermarket shelves are empty due to Brexit lorry driver shortages and a massive influx of staycationers. Pointless moaning i suppose, there’s worse places to be. Stay safe over there old fruit.

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    1. You are quite possibly correct JBM - but I really must come up with some rules and actually play a few games with this collection! Our freight volumes were down about 30% but with the rest of the country moving to the slightly more relaxed level three, combined with the usual start of the month spike, we had a huge volume to deliver this last week.

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  5. Lovely looking figures…..you might need to give the guy with the antitank rifle something to lean on they are a pretty substantial gun !

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    1. Thanks Matt - yes I have thought the same - in fact, the AT rifle I think is intended as an alternative to the MG 34 , not that kneeling figure - but for some reason, this seemed to be the only set of arms left for that kneeling figure,,,,,

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  6. Hope none of the injured die. Seems the police were there quickly.

    Fingers crossed that you manage to eradicate the virus soon in NZ. Our government seems intent on letting it thrive - slow to lockdown, quick to unlock.

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    1. Yes the police had him under 24 hour surveillance as he was a known and active terror threat, they shot him 50 seconds after he started stabbing people. As to the lockdown, your analysis of the UK response seems accurate from our perspective. Australia were the same and we have borne the consequence, via our travel "bubble" that allowed the virus to get here from New South Wales...

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  7. Your DAK figures look great. A Big Mac pizza? Interesting choice of toppings. Cases of COVID in my county (and USA) have been spiking since end of July. As many new cases as ever. Mask wearing mandates are back in place.

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    1. Yes - even in lock down, we are better off than many places Jon. My sister lives in FLA and her son is a Sheriffs Deputy - he has already had Covid TWICE! The Pizza is really first rate!

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  8. Lovely DAK miniatures! I assume some Arabs on camels will be good too:)

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    1. Good idea Dmitry - and I already have some Arabs, although on horses I think - and the infantry are based in groups of two or three, not singly....might have a look at those!

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  9. Hi KIETH,
    Well done on your new German Troops- great painting detail- your certain to have a lot of enjoyment out of your PULP FICTION Project. Stay well and safe there in NZ. Regards. KEV.

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    1. Thank you Kev - I am certainly having fun collecting and painting the figures! I have a tip for you on some really cool 3D printed dwarves - I will put the link on your blog!

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  10. Nice job and a nice sized unit to tackle. I read somewhere that the anti-tank rifle was also used as a sniping weapon, so perhaps your guy can see more action after all.

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    1. Thanks Norm - depending on how extreme I go, the AT Rifle may be required against undead skeleton warriors or a giant ape or dinosaur....we will have to see where the butterflies wings take me!

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  11. You've got the baddies (DAK)--love the antitank rifle (call it an "uber"-something; it's all good in pulp!). Distressing news about the terrorist incident as well as the return to lockdown. The Delta wave is spreading north here in the US--most vexing to see this rebound after where we were in June. Take care and stay safe.

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    1. Thanks Ed - yes, I seem to have started with the baddies - the Japanese being half completed! I have about 100 unpainted RCW Russians who may have a dozen of their number conscripted into this project too. It was always on the cards that we had a few Islamic extremists here, we probably have some white supremacists and Nazis too...On the Covid front, things do seem to be heading in the right direction so fingers crossed.

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  12. Great looking DAK! I'm sure your spare Japanese can swell the ranks of some Chinese warlords nicely!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain, that is certainly how my thinking is going at preset - just need to add a few Big Man (or Woman!) character figures - Copplestone and Bob Murch have plenty to choose from!

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  13. Great work on these Keith. The anti-tank figure could still come in useful for opening doors. We're on a knife edge here again in Queensland with an interstate truck driver having passed it on to a 4 year-old. This Delta variant makes last year look like a mild season.

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    1. Thanks Lawrence - I am sure we will find a use for him! Yes Delta is a bit of a bugger for sure - we are likely to be in a pretty hard lock down, four dropping to three, for at least another month I would think. The rest of the country will probably go to two at the next review - sometime this week I think

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  14. I hope that you have been upping your DAK pulp levels with regular rewatching of Indiana Jones films.
    I have my own pulp DAK (the NAK or the Nord Afrika Korps) made up from the slender tiny 1960s Airfix Type 1 Afrika Korps versus LRDG https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2020/01/18/desert-commando-raid-on-wadi-yu-min-1941/

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    1. Thanks for dropping by and commenting Mark. I very much enjoyed reading your report on your solo game involving the desert airfield raid!

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  15. Those look superb and open up another far too tempting genre to game! Fingers crossed you can get back to some semblance of normality soon. Here in the UK numbers are still rising and now the pressure on the NHS is increasing, despite large numbers being double vaccinated.

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    1. Thanks Steve, yes its a fun project - I just hope it eventually leads to a few games! We seem to be getting there with Covid - new cases at 20 per day for the last three days in a row and only in Auckland - the rest of the country is now at Alert Level 2 which is pretty close to normal - wearing masks in shops, public transport etc, hospitality restricted to max of 50 people inside or 100 outside - so a pain for pubs, people getting married etc but not too restrictive. The US seems to be like the UK too....

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