Sally 4th

Reuse & Recycle – Pulp Alley D&D Dungeon Crawl

Reuse & Recycle – Pulp Alley D&D Dungeon Crawl

If you've not come across Pulp Alley yet, let me explain. Although the cover and title of the book might suggest that it is a rule set for gaming in the Pulp era of the 1920's to 40's, that is not the full story. It does of course excel at Pulp era gaming, but in...

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Something Wicked…. Gaming in the Land of Oz

Something Wicked…. Gaming in the Land of Oz

Dorothy & Pals... Off to see the Wizard! For those of a certain age, Christmas would not be Christmas without a seasonal viewing of 'The Wizard of Oz'. Over the years the magic has been rekindled and introduced to new generations with new tales set in Oz, 'The...

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Rivers & Bridges

Rivers & Bridges

This is my third article about gaming / collecting / painting / printing the range of 90mm Across Flats, modular terrain tiles from Hexhog Tabletops. Last month I spent my printing & painting time printing the lovely rolling, craggy landscape that Hexhog offer as...

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Midshipman Hornblower & The Barberry Pirates:1

Midshipman Hornblower & The Barberry Pirates:1

Part 1: The Ship As a long time gamer and a long time Hornblower fan, for many years I have wanted to bring the two together with some 28mm scale skirmish gaming based on our Naval hero. Over the last year or so we have been working on the initial releases for doing...

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Campfire Chaos

Campfire Chaos

A month or so ago I came across a terrain system for 3D printing in MyMini Factory called Hexhog Tabletops. The system is made up of roughly 3" across the flats hexagonal tiles that are clipped together with OpenLock clips to make up very detailed model landscapes....

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Pulp Alley Gaming Day, September 2024

Pulp Alley Gaming Day, September 2024

Last Saturday, twelve of us got together for a day of Pulp Alley gaming at Geek Retreat, Harrogate. It was the first time that we had put on a Pulp Alley gaming day. I think that everyone had a lot of fun! Six different scenarios were available to be played, on very...

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Damn Dirty Apes!

Damn Dirty Apes!

I've always wanted to do some table-top skirmish and RPG gaming inspired by the 1963 Planet of the Apes original novel by Pierre Bouelle which sees French Cosmonauts visit a planet orbiting the star Betelgeuse, in which great apes are the dominant...

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Hexhog Tabletops 3D Printed modular terrain

Hexhog Tabletops 3D Printed modular terrain

I came across Hexhog Tabletops completely by random a couple of weeks ago, on My Mini Factory, while doing some work on my own store. I certainly was not looking for another terrain system. Sally 4th sells game mats and Terra-Former kits for making 12" square terrain...

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Blood on the Sands

Blood on the Sands

Last week I came across an excellent set of Gladiator skirmish rules called 'Blood on the Sand'. The introductory set of rules are free to download on the authors Facebook page. The rules contain counters, a map board, tokens and play sheets. The rules remind me of...

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Critter Bits – Anthropomorphic Conversions!

Critter Bits – Anthropomorphic Conversions!

I love the miniatures hobby including gaming, painting and collecting miniatures, which is just as well as I have been doing all of those things for at least 45 years now. One of the aspects that I enjoy most about the hobby is converting or kit-bashing miniatures to...

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The Adventures of Midshipman Hornblower

The Adventures of Midshipman Hornblower

Iain Lovecraft and myself have been working on a very special project for the last year  or so. We are both huge fan’s of C.S.Foster’s works and can see no end of tabletop gaming potential. Our initial release covers Napoleonic Royal Navy, French Navy and Barbary...

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A Street off the Aventine

A Street off the Aventine

Updated 16th July 2024 This is my hobby blog detailing my work on developing a detailed First Century Rome terrain set for playing Gangs of Rome, Pulp Alley , Songs of Shadows & Dust and Cohors Cthulthu. Miniatures from Sally 4th Might of Rome / A Street of the...

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My Carnevale / Venice Table

My Carnevale / Venice Table

I've been a huge fan of Carnevale for many years. Last year my good friend Iain Lovecraft designed some fantastic Venice inspired wargames terrain and miniatures. This terrain is designed with gaming in mind, lots of flat or slightly angled roofs that miniatures can...

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WaterSpire 2.0

WaterSpire 2 is a Kickstarter project for 3D printable terrain and miniatures designed by Iain Lovecraft. WaterSpire is great for games set in a city filled with waterways, such as Venice, or any number of imaginary cities in fantasy worlds. The campaign includes...

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Painting Ozz: Cuniculus (Rabbit) Infantry

Painting Ozz: Cuniculus (Rabbit) Infantry

This morning I started painting a new unit for Wars of Ozz, the Black Powder Mass Fantasy Battle game designed by Buck Surdu with miniatures from Old Glory (US) available in UK & Europe from Sally 4th. I decided to star putting together some step by step painting...

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Dungeon Saga Origins

Dungeon Saga Origins

Back in March I backed Mantic Games, Dungeon Saga Origin campaign. I had backed there original Dungeon Saga and had really enjoyed it. It's my favourite dungeon crawl board game! At the weekend the new version arrived in the post. I was very, very impressed with the...

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Early Imperial Romans vs Germans with WooD

Early Imperial Romans vs Germans with WooD

Yesterday my good friend Mike came around to put the new Sally 4th Early Imperial Romans through there paces. The Legionaries are part of a large range of models in the pipeline covering Rome's wars and her enemies. The models are 28mm metal miniatures, designed by...

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Quick, Easy & Great Looking Random Battlefields

Quick, Easy & Great Looking Random Battlefields

Sally 4th has been offering a series of great looking game mats / cloths for some while and over the last six months or so we have been working on a system of terrain overlays for woods, marshes, settlements, rivers tracks and roads. Some times we have a scenario in...

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Pulp Alley: Rome vs Cthulhu

Pulp Alley: Rome vs Cthulhu

Over the last year I have been working on a number of Rome themed gaming projects. We are at the moment running a Kickstarter campaign, For the Glory of Rome that includes some fantastic Early Imperial Legionaries and civilians sculpted by Iain Lovecraft. They are the...

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Speed-painting Rob Roy Highlanders

Speed-painting Rob Roy Highlanders

I thought it would be useful to put a quick article together to show how I paint my Highlanders' quickly to table-top gaming standard. I am definitely more of a gamer than a painter, so when I paint I am interested in the effect from three to four foot away, as this...

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Speed-painting Souk Props

Speed-painting Souk Props

Over the years Ann and I have enjoyed several trips to Morocco and have always been captivated by the sights, sounds and smells of the Souk's or markets, often located in the beautiful old Medinas. For me two of the most distinguishing signs of a North African...

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Rob Roy 28mm Miniatures

Rob Roy 28mm Miniatures

Ever since I saw the Rob Roy movie back in 1995, I have always thought that the plot has a lot of skirmish gaming potential. The very talented Iain Lovecraft has designed a set of miniatures and terrain and David Phipps from Pulp Alley is developing some scenarios to...

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Paint my Wagon: 28mm Old West Wagons

Paint my Wagon: 28mm Old West Wagons

I've been a big fan of the Dead Man's Hand plastic gunfighters ever since they were first released because of the versatility you have to put together some miniatures armed and equipped exactly how you want them. I was therefore very excited to hear that they were...

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What A Cowboy… What A Cultist!

What A Cowboy… What A Cultist!

Over the last couple of months, Doug, John and I have been really enjoying learning Too Fat Lardies, What A Cowboy Western Skirmish rules. We have played some great games set in the Old West. The mechanisms work well and are a lot of fun. I've started thinking about...

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Frost 2: Painting the Magi

Frost 2: Painting the Magi

Sunday morning, I had three hours to spare while Ann was working and as on Saturday the postie had delivered some 3D prints of these lovely six Magi from Iain Lovecraft's Frost 2 Kickstarter campaign, I decided that I would have a go at painting them up, quickly, to...

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Frost 2: Painting Oldkeep Barracks

Frost 2: Painting Oldkeep Barracks

Over the last few weeks, I have had the privilege to be able to test print and paint some of the beautiful models from my good friend, Iain Lovecraft's new terrain and miniatures Kickstarter, Frost 2. This lovely plaster and timber building with a wood tiled roof...

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Wars of Ozz / Pulp Alley Skirmish

Wars of Ozz / Pulp Alley Skirmish

On Friday Doug, John and I got together to play a Wars of Ozz skirmish game using Pulp Alley. The game was set in a semi submerged area of post apocalyptic ruins, where rumour had it that there was an ancient treasure hidden, waiting to be claimed by who ever could...

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Painting WaterSpire Cthulhu Deep Ones

Painting WaterSpire Cthulhu Deep Ones

The Deep Ones are one of the most iconic HP Lovecraft adversaries so I was delighted that Iain Lovecraft agreed to sculpt a set of them for the WaterSpire Kickstarter. The WaterSpire campaign contains buildings, canals, gondolas, statues, bridges, and scatter terrain...

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Bond in Venice

Bond in Venice

Recovering the plans had been complicated. Special Agent Hinks had not expected the British Agent, Bond to at the Cathedral rendezvous. They had been compromised. That is when the fun really started. A fast Carlson was in position, keys in the ignition to take them to...

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Painting Venetian Brick & Stone

Painting Venetian Brick & Stone

For the last five or six months a significant amount of my hobby time has been spent painting model buildings inspired by the architecture of Venice, the floating city. It all started around a year ago. I was talking with my good friend, Iain Lovecraft about how I...

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Dr Who and the Venetian Sea Devils

Dr Who and the Venetian Sea Devils

This morning Mike and I have been enjoying an excellent game of 7TV on the Venetian inspired WaterSpire 3D Printed terrain. Our game is inspired by Dr Who and uses 30 point casts. My cast is based around The Dr (Unearthly Traveller), his plucky assistant (Plucky...

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