Away Team

This is a small unit of seven that I used to game in a Traveller  RPG campaign. It served the function of an Away Team. In it there is a communications specialist (behind the science guy), as well as a science office shown with some sort of tricorder (front right). 

The rest of the figures including one that vaguely looks like a member of the Vargr race are mainly muscle to protect the rest. For some reason I painted them in what I thought as an "UN baby blue" body armour.



I honestly have no idea what company produced these figures. Please let me know if you are able to identify them.

My Unit of the Adeptus Arbites

"We determine the guilty. We decide the punishment." —Lex Imperialis.

The Arbites are the dreaded judges, or police within the WH40K universe and I have a unit of them to go along with an Imperial Commissar. It is my dirty secret. I blogged for over 3 years and I don’t think I mentioned WH40K once in Captain’s Blog.

“The above miniatures © Games Workshop 2003. All rights reserved.
Used without permission - models painted by Robert Hingley"

I also have a Space Wolves Army that I have kept hidden. I used to play 40K many moons ago, before I left Halifax. My long time gaming buddy Harris MacPhail, ran a Space Orks army, and also an Imperial Guard force. We were first introduced to Games Workshop via Rogue Trader by Rob Swan and Harris eventually surrendered to the dark side. He kept buying the minis and the rulebooks as they evolved through the years. I stopped with the 2^nd edition.

From reading on the net, my understanding is the Arbites were dropped from the game. It seems that the Emporor’s Chain Dogs had no place on the 40K battlefield. That’s too bad, I like the look of the figures but I can still use them with Traveller.

“The above miniatures © Games Workshop 2003. All rights reserved.
Used without permission - models painted by Robert Hingley"

As for the Commissar, he is present to ensure the loyalty and moral purity of the unit to which he is attached by any means necessary. Another way to look at it, he's in charge of morale.

Orcs of the Hand: Village

This village consists of two packs of 4 huts each and were purchased in Halifax at Odyssey 2000 at least 20 years ago. Sheldon has not been in business for a number of years but his store on Barrington Street was one of the places I used to shop for gaming supplies in the Halifax-Dartmouth region from the late-1970s until I left in 1997.

These resign castings are still available from Scotia Grendel under the listing of F0027- Goblin Stronghold. I choose to call this an Orcs of the Hand Village due to the number of shields hanging upon the huts. 

As you can see from the 28mm Soviet Infantry used for scale, the height of the huts would conform more to Goblins than Uruk-hai Orcs.

The Blog With No Name Prize Draw

Ian, at the The Blog With No Name is celebrating both his Blog's 2nd anniversary and his 500th posting. IMO that is the grand achievement. I am lucky to write 30 posts in a year. Please head over to his Blog and take part in the party. 

The Source of the Title

“The drums do beat and the wars do alarm
The captain calls, we must obey
So farewell, farewell to Nova Scotia's charms
For it's early in the morning, I'll be far, far away”

is the 3rd verse from the song “Farewell to Nova Scotia” collected by noted Maritime folklorist Helen Creighton.

The Captain Calls will be devoted my older armies. These are the forces that I amassed before I started to write Captain's Blog. To be honest most of the miniatures will predate the World Wide Web as we know it.  I also plan to exhibit armies that I blogged about over a number of posts and or even years, in a tight format with new photos.

For example both the Trajanic Roman Army, or "The Tragics" come to mind, as does my WWII 20mm Imperial Japanese. I suspect over two thirds of the Romans were painted long before I started blogging and I want to show off the army in its entirety.

The Source of the Title: The Captain Calls

According to Wikipedia Farewell to Nova Scotia is a popular folk song from Nova Scotia of unknown authorship. Versions of the song were collected by folklorist Helen Creighton, first in 1933 from Ann Greenough in Petpeswick, Nova Scotia, and then from other singers in surrounding communities along the province's Eastern Shore. It is believed to have been written just prior to or during the First World War.

In the late 1950s Dr. Creighton recorded my maternal grandfather (Augustine MacDonald) playing the bagpipes, singing in both English and Gaelic, and telling both folktales and ghost stories. He died in 1960 when I was 4 years old, living in BC, without every meeting him.