Call To Arms 3: Other spectacular games

My last two postings covered the two display games I put on last weekend at Call To Arms: colonial New Zealand Wars and a samurai skirmish.

In this last posting about Call To Arms, I’ll look at some of the other eye-catching games that were on show.

Carrion up the Nile

This was easily the most spectacular game at the show.  But unlike my own two games, this wasn’t just a static display, but a fully functional pulp-era game, alive with loads of Indiana Jones-style derring-do.

The huge table was almost entirely covered in an impressive Egyptian city, populated with lots of beautiful little vignette scenes.

Here’s one of those vignettes – a market place beside the mosque.

It seems the punishment for short-changing or over-charging is pretty swift in this town.

Coach tour to Cairo …

The police station.  Love that chunky Ehrhardt armoured car.

A police interview in progress in the station courtyard …

A show band in the sand?  With mummies dancing like an Egyptian?

Oh, it’s all just a movie!

Down on the river-front …

Last call!  All visitors ashore!

The city-scape of towers and domes.  Note the pyamid complex just visible in the distance.

And here we are at the foot of the pyramid.  There must surely be a secret entrance.

The entry-level of the pyramid.

And down in the basement,surrounded by a lava-filled moat, there’s no doubt something special.  At least, that’s what all those gathering adventurers think.

More photos and a game report can be found on Wade’s World of Wargaming.  I must admit that this pulp fiction is an era of gaming I could get into, especially with scenery like this.

Dystopian Wars

I don’t know much about this fantasy steam-punk game, but it certainly looked impressive.   The models were very intricate, and beautifully painted.  I liked the water effect, too.

Bushido

The delightful little Japanese fantasy game was played with a handful of beautifully painted figures.  The terrain changed from game to game, using a range of typically oriental items, even  including aquarium scenery.

More fantasy Japan

I’m not exactly sure which rules were being used in this game. But my eye was taken with the dramatic scenery. It included some excellent use of the third dimension (height), which is so often underplayed in wargames scenery.

Plus I loved seeing the Plastcraft Games pagoda, a plastic card kitset I have coveted for some time for my own samurai gaming.

More German polizei oldtimers from the interwar years

I promised in my last post about odd German polizei vehicles to post a few more pics.  The first one here is of a circa 1920 Daimler DZR armoured car.   If you look carefully (click on the photo for more detail) you can make out the wording ‘Sicherheitspolizei Hamburg’ (Hamburg Security Police) on the rear.   I love those big solid-looking wheels.

Here’s another shot of the Daimler DZR in Hamburg.  Both the above pics come from Jochen Breitenbach’s Polizei-Sonderwagen geschichte und einsatz.

I really like this picture of a Baden polizei contingent on the move in the Black Forest.   At the front is a Benz/21 armoured car.  The police officers riding in the large charabancs must be having some concerns negotiating those hairpin bends with the steep drop-off!

Now for something a bit different.  How many police officers can you get on one motorcycle combination?  Well, the crew of this 1927 Prussian State police motorcycle is five.  This and the photo above it both come from Die Kraftfahrzeuge der Polizei und des Bundesgrenzschutzes by Werner Oswald.

OK, I know, this isn’t interwar. But how could I resist finishing with this big police officer and his tiny BMW Isetta patrol car in Rheinland-Pfalz about 1960?

Odd interwar German polizei vehicles

When you called the police in Germany between the wars, boy, did you get police!   Imagine one of these beauties pulling up outside to take a report of your milk bottles being nicked!  This is a 1928 Magirus MM transporter (click on the picture to see it in greater detail).

I pity the officers travelling in the trailer of this 1926 MAN transporter – it must’ve been a bumpy ride.

These would be terrific units in an interwar game, if any miniature company ever made anything like them.   Or even in a Very British Civil War game, as a German polizei unit brought over to help their British police colleagues.

Note how the shakos worn by the officers are very similar to those worn by jaegers during the Franco-Prussian and Great Wars.   These distinctive hats were worn by German police during WW2, and right up to the 1960s.

I’ve got a few old books I’ve got about the German police vehicles.  The book these particular pics came from is called Polizei-Fahrzeuge gestern und heute by Klaus-Fr Doenecke and Dirk Lemcke.

There are a few more oddities portrayed in these books.   Lovers of old armoured cars and motorcycle combinations may be especially interested in them.