Rewilding the jungle

 Not my 'garden' - that's still at the chopping down trees and burning the wood stage (no, I'm not killing them - just doing several years maintenance in one go). 

It's just that I felt that I needed a lot more trees to do proper jungle scenarios - there was a bit of a tree shortage looking at that last scenario, and if I tried to do one on an 8' x 4' board they would be lost. So Ebay failed to locate any of those useful/cheap trees, happily Amazon managed it.

Likewise, very short on cultists, so got a few more from Elheim. Also, as Arabs feature a lot in pulp adventures I got some of their Arabs. Sadly, their cultist Arabs match their robed cultists but their Mehalla figures are a lot bigger! Not really compatible even though in the same range! I'll have to see how they compare when painted.

I have actually done a bit of painting recently - just some aren't based, others not photographed. Something to get around to.

Building up the Lovecraft/Cthulhu 'reference' library

 Although I've had the full set of Lovecraft Mythos stories I've never really bothered picking up other authors efforts. However, saw this job lot on E Bay and couldn't resist...

It was always going to end like this...

Even seeing Cthulhu sends men insane... so having him physically attack you... well...

Panic as the tankettes back into each in their efforts to get away...

Cthulhu moves out of the temple as one hapless soldier is run over by a reversing tank.

The monster is big enough to cover both tanks.

They don't survive the encounter!

The remains of the HQ group are the next to fall. Not something to slow Cthulhu's inexorable murderous advance.

Unable to get past the monster, some soldiers flee into the city and are attacked by more cultists.

They are forced back and pass into another chamber.

With a couple of soldiers trapped behind Cthulhu, others facing attack by cultists, and the rest about to be eaten (or something)... things aren't looking good for the Japanese!

Though the ones retreating from the cultists might (?) manage to find a way out of the city.

At which point, perhaps best to draw a curtain over the next part...

The beast awakens

 

The rest of the force cautiously enters the city while the officer leads his HQ group to check out the temple.

As the officer climbs to the top of a column the force starts moving further into the city.

 

As he stood there, long tentacles appeared from a well in the temple and snatched him...

 

 

It was so quick that noone knew what had happened. The corporal led a couple of men to investigate.

 

 

Suddenly a winged, tentacled monstrosity rose up before them.

 

 

One brave soldier fired at the nightmare while the rest of the force panicked. Hastily reversing to try and turn around, two of the tanketes colled with each other... (Rolling for combat/morale, I treated each tentacle as separate and with 'god' facing Hordes. One tentacle rolled a 1 as the man it was facing rolled a 6!)

 

 

Utter panic as Cthulhu surveyed the scene before him...

  

Intermission - a WW2 puzzle

 Sorting through some of the things from my mother's things I found this interesting newspaper article dating back to 1942. I don't recognise any of the names but... their is an 'A. MacFarlane' there. My Great Grandfather was called Alexander McFarlane - he died in 1899 so obviously not him! But why else would this article have been cut out if there wasn't some family connection in the photo? Certainly, my family was involved in shipbuilders - four of the fitters who died on the Hood were related. So, were the army wrong with Alexander McFarlane? - unlikely? (the known Irish side of the family were Flynns strangely, that name was changed - they were originally O'Flynns.). Or did the paper get it wrong?

No idea.

Skirmish in the ruins

 

As the ambushers fire on the Japanese one of the soldiers is hit and falls to the ground.

The Japanese return fire as they face their attackers...

But as their return fire is ineffective and they lose another man, although one of the attackers also falls. The soldiers decide to charge the ambushers instead ...

The charge results in two more attackers down as the survivors withdraw.

 

And the rest of the force enters the city as the first section takes up a defensive position in case of another attack.

Ruins in the jungle

 

Crossing the stream the Type 97 TE-KE tankettes stopped as the path lead to the entrance to a ruined city, the low surviving walls into the jungle on both sides. The tankettes stopped at the entrance as the officer and his command group came up to evaluate the situation.

No point sending the TE-KEs in - not a good place for tanks! The 1st Section got the job of checking the entrance out...

 

Along the overgrown passageway they went. At the it opened, as the section started to spread out, they came across the remains of a cyclopean temple-like structure ahead of them.

 

Shots fired! Figures clad in brown robes egged on by a strange purple robed figure! Caught by surprise the section readied itself for combat...