We are back with the first blog entry where we show off eye candy. First off, my lighting sucks and I just don’t have good set up for taking pictures of my miniatures. To be fair, I am not a good painter, and all these miniatures were painted by Fernando Enterprises in Sri Lanka. They are good service, but you need to be very careful on painting / assembly instructions as sometimes there is a big disconnect in translation for your instructions. Overall, I am happy and will continue to use them in the future. So, bear with me with the quality of the pictures.
I am going to focus on my human miniatures in this blog entry. These are only my painted figures. I will have pictures of the unpainted human miniatures that either I have or will buy for this project in a later blog entry. Hopefully, I will be sending the unpainted figures off soon to be painted and will have them back in several months. At that time, I will post pictures of them after I get them in all their painted glory.
First, let’s start with the civilians that will either be the first or last line of defense against the atomic horrors.
Yes, it is that buxom, blonde bombshell that proves Bug-Eyed Monsters (BEMs) do prefer blondes. Needless to say, she will be the primary objective in any capture or defend scenarios. She and the two male cohorts are from Blue Moon Manufacturing’s set, “Hollywood Nights” from the Pulp Character line.
Here are the first of the ‘mostly’ harmless civilians. They are all from Killer B Games’, “Invasion X” line in two different packs, one called, “The Biker and The Mechanic” and the other called, “The Boy and his Dog”. I suspect you can figure out which figure is which without me explaining it. Killer B has release more unarmed civilians that I bought, but they came out after I mailed all of these to be painted. More victims, err, characters to come later.
Next is the armed citizens that will give the alien invaders a bit more trouble. This first group will be more trouble than what they will suspect! These figures are from Brigade Games’ “Atomic Café 1957” line. The line is for a game after a post nuclear apocalypse, so most of the figures from this line tend to have a post-apocalypse look, but most work quite well in most ‘normal’ cases. These specific figures is one of their two “core” starter sets, the “8th Avenue Greasers”. It has eight males, one female, and one male mutant hulk. He came with a stop sign on a pole for a club, but my figure doesn’t have it. I can purchase another one individually and have it holding the stop sign and pole. I am still debating on that.
“They were my best bowlers.” Okay, I really like this set. This is another Brigade Games’ “Atomic Café 1957” pack of miniatures called, “The Michigan State Bowling League”. I didn’t get them painted up to match the colors for Michigan State though.
Not to be out done by a men’s sport team, here are some Roller Derby women to body check the unsuspected alien. These banshees on wheels are also from the Brigade Games’ “Atomic Café 1957” line called, “The Roller Girls”.
“M-A-R! Right, boys and girls! V-I-N! N-now it is time for your favorite Moose!” Why should the adults have all of the fun fighting aliens and monsters? It is time for these Mooseketeer Menaces to really make the aliens wish they had stayed home. Another pack from the Brigade Games’ “Atomic Café 1957” line called, “The Mooseketeers and Marvin Moose”. Unfortunately, there was no Annette miniature. (sad face).
“Is it a blimp? No, it is Super Duper Man!” Okay, this is definitely going to be a hard one to integrate into the project, but I am sure that there were cosplayers even in the 1950’s, in fact one the earliest Live Action Role Playing Game was in the 1930’s! (Search for XXX, to check that out). If nothing else, he can be part of the Mooseketeers group. Also, from the Brigade Games’ “Atomic Café 1957” line called, “Super Duper Man”.
“Float away, little butterfly. Just flutter away.” The figure on the left is missing his Fender guitar (sad face), but he is the a representative of Buddy from the 1998, cult classic movie, “Six String Samurai” If you didn’t notice my quote from the Bowlers above, I am a fan of this movie. I need to buy another figure to get the missing Fender for the figure. The figure on the right is good match for ‘The Mariachi’ from the 1995 movie, “Desperado”. While that movie is definitely not a 1950’s theme, I got am adding him in just for the fun of it (plus, I have 28mm Mariachi band that will work in nicely!) Both figures are sold separately from the Brigade Games’ “Atomic Café 1957” line called, “Strumming Samurai” and “Guitar Case Gunner”, respectfully.
Finally, the last of the civilian figures is the Man, the Legend, the Alpha Male and some of Kit Kat girls! Yeah, if you can’t figure who this is, I can’t help you. This pack is from the Brigade Games’ “Atomic Café 1957” line called, “The Kit Kat Club”. I have since found some 28mm women in Bunny outfits that I will be buying to have optional team build.
Next, we will showcase the local and state government agencies that are the first response to the save the civilians from the menacing aliens.
Here’s the beginnings of the local police, although one is referred to a Deputy by the manufacturer, Killer B Game (As he is British, I am not entirely sure if understands that a Deputy is a county official, and a Police Chief is normally a city official or maybe meant to have figures for two different government departments in the same pack). The one on the left is the Deputy (but I have him painted up to be a town cop) and the one to the right is the Police Chief. As mentioned earlier, they are both from Killer B’s “Invasion X” line in the pack called, “Police Chief and Deputy”. I might pick up another pack in the future and have them painted up in the typical khaki and brown for a sheriff department, but I wish I can find some in Stetsons since it appears in most of the period movies, the sheriff departments wore them instead of the patrolman’s cap.
My first of two different state police who will be slightly better trained than the local cops in my games. Plus, staying true to the genre, most small towns didn’t have many local cops, so they had to rely on state troopers to help them out. Since the various state police departments have unique uniforms, I initially decided to narrow my focus to two states police departments to get painted up. Clearly, New Mexico had to be the best choice as it is the home of the Trinity Bomb site and Roswell! Whether it is dealing with giant ants or crashed weather balloons, these are the first real defense to protect the citizens of America. These figures are from the Brigade Games’ “Atomic Café 1957” line called, “The Local Cops” (well, I upgrade them to be state troopers). The car in the picture is one of two 1/43 scale Road Champs diecast 1957 Ford Fairlane patrol car with the New Mexico State Police markings.
As New Mexico was clearly had to be one choice, California is the next best choice as many of the 1950s movies took place in that state. Using the same figures that I had used for the New Mexico State Police, I had this pack painted up the California Highway Patrol. Likewise, the car in the picture is same as the one before, but with California Highway Patrol markings.
Now, it is time to start showing the Federal government response to this crisis of alien invaders or atomic horrors. What group would be the best to reply, but the US Army!
This picture is what comes with the second ‘core’ starter set of miniatures for Brigade Game’s, “Atomic Café 1957”. For whatever reason, they decided to call them, “The 314th Federal Defense Force Troops”. As it is clearly a game based on an alternative history, we will let it slide. I do want to point out that the man in black in the picture does come in the set. He is referred to as a G-Man in their description. There are two versions of the enlisted men, one without gas mask and the other with a gas mask that looks very close to the M9 gas mask that was used in the 1950s – so kudos to them for that! (See the following picture for closer look of one figure in the gas mask). The officer and G-Man only come without the respirator. The individual soldiers are armed with M1 Garand rifles, and one has a B.A.R. This would be correct for the bulk of the US Army through the 1950s and even into the 1960s. The M14 rifle only started to being replaced in specific US Army units in 1958 with the USMC starting to get them in 1965. It is nice that they are armed with the M1, so they can either be Regulars up to 1965 when the last Regular unit was switched over to the M14 or National Guard troops right up to the early 1970s when the last of them were switched over to the M16 rifle.
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This next group of solders are from Killer B Games’ “Invasion X” line: “US Soldiers Command” (The officer, sergeant, radio operator, and machine gunner), and “US Soldiers Attacking” and “US Solders Advancing”. These figures armed with M14 rifles, and the machine gunner has a M60 machine gun. The M60 while was approved for use in 1957, it wasn’t until 1959 that they really started to be issued to units. So, that sort of dates them for an “experimental” unit for 1957 to 1959 or more of a unit in the 1960s. To my knowledge, almost no National Guard units were issued the M14 rifle, so that would make these figures Regular Army in any game that were I would have them and the National Guard on the table at the same time (obviously, the first group of soldiers from Brigade Games would be the National Guardsmen.)
The following picture is some of both figures mixed together along with a 1/43 scale 2-1/2 ton truck. The heads of the Killer B figures are bigger, but I don’t think too much that it is really distracting.
You know that he had to be made! As Elvis served between 1958 and 1960, mostly in Germany, this will date the games if I was really worried about historical accuracy, but as I am dealing with alien invaders and atomic mutants, how historical do you think I am going to be? (Yes, I know the just give a short history over the M1 and M14 rifles, but still…) This figure is sold individually from Brigade Game’s, “Atomic Café 1957”, as the “King of Cool”.
Are they really part of the Federal government? Who knows! This group of guys are the mysteries Men In Black or agents of Majestic-12, a super top secret agency that doesn’t exist. They are armed with alien technology and weapons. Are they the good guys or the future overlords of Earth? They are from Killer B Games’ “Invasion X” line in a pack called, “Majestic-12 Agents”.
And finally, the head of the Free Worlds and greatest threat to the alien invaders and atomic monsters, Richard Milhouse Nixon, and his Secret Service detail! Okay, I am going to have to say that even all of the other figures that I really enjoy for the “Atomic Café 1957”, this is probably my favor not only because the details on the face really look like Nixon, but the whole idea of having Nixon in a game. In Brigade Games’, “Atomic Café 1957” after the nuclear exchange, Vice President Richard Nixon took over as President with the death of Eisenhower. Due to the destruction of the infrastructure of the US, Nixon is delegated to President for Life as there is no way to have proper elections for anytime in the foreseeable future. In my games, he is going to be good old Vice President Nixon and may be the target by those communist aliens. As previously mentioned, they are available as part the “Atomic Café 1957” line in a pack called, “President for Life Nixon with Security Detail”
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