1920's-1930's gangsters and police
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I thought I remember hearing something about there being some sort of early 20th century Policeman and Gangster miniatures coming along next year for a bootlegger game (possibly The Chicago Way from Great Escape). Is there anything to that or was that a fevered dream on my part? If they aren't, may I humbly suggest it would be great if they were, general Pulp adventures and Lovecraft themed games would have a great use for them.
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I haven't heard anything of the sort, but you might not have been completely imagining things - there are some items that are close to what you are describing in Digital format:
"Cthulhu Cultists" includes at least one trenchcoat-and-fedora guy with a small arm selection of 1911 semiauto, torch, and tome, and an alternate head or two. The fishy Deep One cultists are a nice touch, and the sculpts are all quite good, but one really wishes there were a wider selection of optional bits, and bodies. A kit of just the trenchcoat-and-fedora guys alone in a kit comparable to the Pulp Adventure Agents would be fantastic for a few nich sci-fi, gangster, and horror gaming purposes.
The "Death Fields Runner Hunters" borrow from a Cyberpunk "Blade Runner" noir aesthetic with trench coats and suits that, at least for the bodies, wouldn't look far off from a pulp '20s-'30s gangster, G-Man, or men-in-black. Sadly, the set has only two male and two female body options, the female costumes are a little more fanciful than would work for a "realistic" period setting, and the sci-fi guns and modern haircuts would be even further out of place. Still, the male figures do seem like they would combine nicely with the Cthulhu Cultist bits and some of the French Partisans I bits to make a more complete and varied mob of gangsters-and-g-men.
A one-off Mob Boss with a Tommy was released for Christmas a few years ago, he's a nice sculpt but that's all there is - one piece, no optons.
These Victorian Police are a wonderful digital set with a nice selection of revolvers, truncheons, and whistles with 1800s-era pith helmets that would be great for a Gaslight setting and would probably work fine into the 1920s as well even if the costumes would be a bit dated by then, but one wishes there were a hard plastic version of this set, maybe with a riot gun and Thompson or two, and period police-style flat officer's caps (similar style hats might be looted as spares from military kits - not perfect, but close enough.)
This "Police Patrol Unit" is pretty modern, and intended to work alongside the modern-era zombies and survivors for the Pulp Adventure line, but it's still another wonderful police set, and some of the bits could probably still pass for a police force from a little earlier in the 20th century with a little handwaving, though they'll look more and more out of place the further back in time past, say, the 1960s you go.
WA's hard plastic Pulp Adventure Agents are in a similar boat as a bunch of guys and gals in suits: the style of suits are not quite period-correct for the '20s-'30s, and the women in particular would be out of place in an era when it was a bit scandalous for women to wear trousers, but the male agents would work fine for most of the latter part of the 20th century, and could, with a careful selection of weapon and heads, probably be handwaved into earlier decades as gangsters-and-G-men as long as nobody is looking too closely at the details.
And much the same could also be said for WA's hard plastic WWII Partisans sets (men and women): there are a few bits in there that can be handwaved as '20s and '30s era bootleggers, civilians, and gangsters, and the heads and some of the period weapons are particularly useful for kitbashing, but there's something distinctly '40s-'50s about some of the costuming options for these sets.
The weapons selections for the Partisans, Agents, and Survivors sets seem to lean pretty heavily towards the sort of SMGs that are most at home from about the '40s onward (with the Agents set morelike the sorts of SMGs and military rifles from about the '60s onward....) Revolvers, most shotguns, and bolt-action rifles, however, can be found in most of these sets. along with the occasional improvised weapon (baseball bats and that sort of thing), and will usually work fine for arming up mobs of civilians, gangsters, government agents, and even police officers. One does wish there were, say, a quarter-frame of early 20th-century fedora, derby, boater, and flat-cap bits, and some ladies' hats, to help "sell" the illusion for conversions involving these sorts of civilian and partisan sets, though!
This pulpy "German Treasure Hunters" set will probably look a little familiar to '80s adventure movie buffs; the SS guy(s) has a trenchcoat and fedora with a couple (unarmed) arms, and he might be kinda useful, while the German soldiers and cultist priest might have some other general-purpose pulp uses.
This set of Priests/Exorcists are fantastic for a pulp Cthulhu game, and could probably also pass for additional cultists in a pinch, too. This is another set I really wish was available in hard plastic, though its niche usage is surely limited mostly to 20th Century pulp horror gaming.
This "WWI Field Hospital" set is absolutely fantastic - the patients are "gravy", and could surely come in useful for something, but the real prizes are the doctors and nurses: you've basically got the start of a full staff for a Cthulhu Pulp mental asylum here. The nurses include a selection of period guns and grenades, and have heads that would allow them to double as combat nuns to back up the priests, above. The doctors would make great assistants for a mad scientist, blood-soaked hospital ghouls (with some creative painting), and more.
This Ambulance would go nicely with the "Field Hospital" staff, above, for the hosptical's ambulance or "paddy wagon" for hauling your raving Cthulhu investigators away in. Or, perhaps your could haul bootleg whisky in it instead?
Some other WA Digital Atlantic sets you might get a little mileage from for mid-war Pulp and general-purpose horror gaming might include:
- The Death Fields spectators and civilians sets, and the General Accoutrements Fleeing Civilians: the costumes here are probably mostly slanted towards a sci-fi setting, but the worst-case-scenario there might be that you have some aliens, cultists, and eccentrics to work with for a pulp-era Cthulhu game.
- "Thuggee Assassins" (see the "German Treasure Hunters", above)
- General Accoutrements Wolves and Collossal Snakes (a few wolves are always useful, and it's not too hard to dress them up as guard, attack, or police dogs, and I bet Robert E. Howard or Edbar Rice Burroughs could find a few uses for those snakes!)
- There are some nice Digital Werewolves, a gang of Digital "Demon Creatures", and some excellent Digital vampires in dated fancy costumes who would look just as at home in a '20s-'30s gothic horror setting as they would in a "traditional fantasy" setting; the vampire in suit-and-tie and the female vampire in fancy dress would look especially good in that era.
- The "Vampire Hunters" set are probably intended for a "traditional fantasy" setting, but their suits, ties, longcoats and wide-brimmed hats might be easy enough to "handwave" into a 20th century pulp horror setting as well, hanging out with that set of priests, perhaps.
- The "Classic Fantasy Cultists" are costumed into something that might best suit a traditional fantasy setting, or even a sword-and-sandal sort of thing, but pulp cultists are well-known for wearing eccentric costumes, and the bits could probably mix well with the Cthulhu Cultists set above.
- The tentacle-faced Classic Fantasy Digital "Brain Mages" should also surely mix well with the Cthulhu Cultists.
- And Wargames Atlantic's hard plastic Imperial Conquest (generally Victorian/Gaslight) and Great War and World Ablaze (world-war/mid-war) ranges are full of useful kits for 20s-30s era and Gaslight/Victorian pulp gaming, with the Digital side of those lines also including a wealth of interesting subjects. I rather like the Afghans and Boxers, the French Foreign Legion (digital), the world-war British, French, Italian, and Russian soldiers and machine gun teams, the WWI tanks (digital). As mentioned above, the hard plastic WWII partisans sets are also a great source of civilian bits, even if the period is technically a decade or so too modern for hte '20s-'30s target....
- The hard plastic Pulp Adventure zombies and the Pulp Adventure civilians (these are aimed more towards the later 20th century but a many of these civilian figures, especially the males, might be handwaved into earlier eras as long as nobody looks too closely; the revolvers, pump and double-barreled shotguns, and cowboy hats are especially useful for the Gaslight and Jazz-Age span of Cthulhu pulp settings.) As mentioned above, the Pulp Adventure Agents are similarly useful, though aimed more towards the later 20th century.
- Some of the Classic Fantasy and Baron's War ranges are surprisingly versatile, and can be stretched into this setting with a little creativity and invention - the hard plastic Classic Fantasy villagers are particularly interesting here, with some costuming being suitable enough for early 20th-century "Transylvanian" peasants in a Gothic Horror setting, for example. The Baron's War levy could be adapted easily enough into robed-and-hooded cultists or assassins, and the upcoming hard plastic "Militant Monks" set looks like it will fit this purpose even better, if it ever gets beyond the teaser stage!
In short, Wargames Atlantic DOES have some assets that reasonably closelyfit the description of "20s and 30s era gangsters and police", but nostly these are scattered through a number of Digital-only sets. If you have a 3D printer, the first few sets mentioned above will probably cover a '20s-'30s gangsters-and-G-men sort of thing, and the Victorian police are likely also useful for you. For those of us who haven't got the room, money, or time to devote to learning the 3D printing hobby, there is definitely nothing like that for us in WA's hard plastic, at least not yet.
(Niche as they might be, I'd certainly like to see see hard plastic versions of many of the above sets, though, especially the two police sets, the doctors and nurses from the Field Hospital set, the vampires, vampire hunters and priests, and some sort of trench-coats-and-fedoras set with bits similar to some of the figures from the digital Cthulhu Cultist and Runner Hunters sets!)
