D is for Dragonology!

We had Pirateology back on International Talk Like a Pirate Day, last September, and heaven forfend that I now influence people who used to influence me, but I've put another 'ology on the back-burner and pulled this out of the queue sharpish!

Dragonology, like the preveous Piratology, a pretty-standard board-game under the trope of the dragon theme - gotta' have a hook to hang it on! Nice graphics, although I forgot to shoot the board, but there are two views of it in the post and you can see it's a journey-round the board doing/collecting stuff, with card forfeits/jeopardies.

 

Still carried here by Paul Lamond for Sababa, but also crediting Templar Publishing who hold the 'ology series, there are other games, based on other titles in the book series, with two for Wizardology (heehee!), but not yet an Egyptology one, which is the one I'm waiting/hoping for, although if they do make one, it may not have figures! While the newer books haven't had the momentum yet, to generate the desire/need for games?

 

Obviously the figures are the all-important bit, and this set actually carries more than the Pirate set, with six figures, rather than five, several of whom bear more than a passing resemblance to the characters from Cludo!

 

 

They all have names, as do the dragons (have identities), but I was a little disappointed to see, or not see . . . a Welsh one, but I think Switzerland is doing the heavy-lifting for both Cymru and the Vikings! The right-hand human images seem to be taken from much-larger, highly detailed master-sculpts, rather than than the eventual 35/40mm'ish production figures, which have lost a lot of that detail.

 

You can see how Beatrice Cook could double for Miss Peacock, Dragon Man Dan for Colonel Mustard, Phineas Feek for Professor Plum, one of the others could be repainted for Mr. Green, and while one of the missing women could be covered by the Oriental girl, Miss Ta, either Emery or Drake (best for Mr. Green) would have to re-identify, which would excite the Trumpy Broflakes, wouldn't it!

The nine dragons are all equally well-done, and as per the B&W sheet, display some of the different physiognomies or traits of various dragons from myths and legends around the world, although scale is a little-off, I feel, the Chinese dragon should be one of the bigger ones

The other/another angle for eight of them, not much I can add, they'd go better up against 1:76/72 figures, than anything larger, perhaps with all the fantasy stuff coming from Caesar and Dark Alliance - EY, I'm thinking of you - and you can pick them up for cheapness on feeBay!

 

While the little Knucker (closest to a Viking Wyrm, or the great Earth Worm), has a nice metallic belly which is totally lost when it's on the board!

M is for Matters Arising!

Well, I've pulled the last big post, which happens to be one of the posts pulled last year! The other was the Premium Pirates, so very convenient that Kent moved first! I'm not pulling it because I've run out of time or got flue, but because I couldn't be arsed to finish it off this afternoon, went and did other things and am now looking forward to a late chicken stew which will take 'till midnight (needs deboning), if I get this out quick!

And what this is, are a few shots I took as a sort of follow-up a couple of hours ago while I was round at the flat getting the tins of chicken soup and mushrooms for the base of the stew!

 

The yellow one here is the Webb's Supertoy pirate one, but I've had several of the pink ones from Peter Evans, and while I suspect something more 'princessy', the figure makes a good period C18th lady-pirate, or pirate's moll, and an ID would be nice, the embarrassment may be that she's on the blog in one of those pinky-mauve sets from 99p Stores or Poundland around ten-years ago! Anyone recognise these pink ladies?

Having waited years, over a decade to get a full set of these (finally managed a year or so ago), five came along at once - the Supreme / SP undead pirates!

 

I mentioned the likely compatibility, and you can see here the eight Crazy Pirates from New Zealand and Aussie-landia (there was a Peruvian issue too), do fit in well with the other set of twenty, so even more fun, pity nobody knew that in 1970! Many thanks to Glen again for those.

 

Comparison between the PVC-alike production of Papo (50mm), Plastoy (45mm) and the Pirateology game-piece figure (40mm), all a bit 'ish, but all out there now, and relatively affordable!

 

This (Supreme for Halsall - now HTI) should have been covered in the ITLAPD into' post last year or the year before, but a loose boat came in, and I had the spare figure here, so posed them both together!

 

And that's it for this year, much gratitude to everyone who's helped and/or contributed; Brian Berke, Peter Evans, Glen Sibbald, Chris Smith, John Begg, Jon Attwood, and you, if I've failed to mention you . . . no, not YOU, you ate all the biscuits and wandered off, I'm not even inviting you next year.

Ah'haaarrrrr mee arrty felloows! Until next yearrr, may the wind get behind yerrr sails and yerrr mast stay up! Ooo-urrh missus!

P is for Pirateology!

Having mentioned the possibility that the two smaller figures in the round-up might be from a board-game, I can tell you only that it isn't Pirateology, because that's here, right now, and it has different figures!

I thought we'd had the Dragonology set, posted up here, but looking for it just now, quickly realised it's still in the long-queue! Nevertheless, this is a sister game, Pirateology (presumably 'the study and understanding of pirates and piratey things!), from Sababa Toys (via Esdevium Games (Paul Lamond)), and it's a game . . . with pirates!

 

Based on a series of books by Dugald Steer and Nghiem Ta, it followed the Dragonology, Egyptology and Wizardology books, and has since been joined by Oceanology and Monstrology! I'm not going to pretend to know anything about them beyond the fact that clearly a franchise has been born!

 

Skull dice and coins which have gone in the spares pile for future . . . God knows what? But the little PVC-effect micro-pirate ships are rather lovely and will join the Galoob vessels in the relevant drawer of the little cabinet, we looked at a while ago.

 

The rest then went to recycling, I just haven't got the space, and would likely never have played the game, the capitalist, consumption-driven system produces mountains of this stuff, and I just waited for one going cheap (£5.99'ish), to get the figures.

 

And this is they; the meat & four veg'! About 35/40mm, quite well painted and a couple of obvious specifics; a China Sea pirate and a Berber/Barbary/Ottoman Corsair, they are really nice for board-game figures, but you'd have to be careful, as it's all in the base-colour as to who's 'marker' is who's! They seem to tie-in to the coloured banners and flags/pennants on the ships.