H.P.Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulhu...

"The Call of Cthulhu" is one of H. P. Lovecraft's best-known short stories. Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in Weird Tales, February 1928. It is the only story written by Lovecraft in which the extraterrestrial entity Cthulhu himself makes a major appearance.

It is written in a documentary style, with three independent narratives linked together by the device of a narrator discovering notes left by a deceased relative. The narrator pieces together the whole truth and disturbing significance of the information he possesses, illustrating the story's first line: "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." more on Wikipedia.

Cohors Cthulhu

“"Where once mighty legions marched, and valiant tribes fought. Where legends walked the lands and terrors prowled the vast forests. Where ancient secrets unlocked immense power and inhuman gods threatened chaos and destruction…

Summon heroes from across the Roman Empire to fight alone or with allies against the eldritch forces of the outer gods. Carve your way through the mist-shrouded Germanic forests, encountering strange ruins, and monstrous enemies at every turn. Can your heroes keep your soldiers together against the unfathomable hordes or will their sanity shatter as quickly as their ranks? Your enemy, the malevolent Outer God Mendaxius will match the wits of your mightiest heroes and the size of your legions, ensuring you always face a vile, and relentless foe.

Cohors Cthulhu: Tactics is a brand new horror-themed miniatures game set in the Cohors Cthulhu universe during the height of Imperial Rome. You begin your heroic journey as one of a handful of survivors of an ambush, desperately trying to escape the Mythos-ridden mists of a Germanic forest. "

from the Cohors Cthulhu: Tactics Adventure Wargame Kickstarter page

I backed the Cohors Cthulhu RPG Kickstarter since I liked the “Achtung Cthulhu!” RPG a lot. As with other Modiphiüs games, I was not disappointed at all – I love the setting in fact! The background is very well worked out and with the current wargame KS we can delve even deeper.

During the RPG KS I backed their digital minis and printed most of them already. As soon as the downloadable Prologue was available I started to paint some minis. My minis are a little bit upscaled (31mm) and I based them on 32mm bases. (Quote from the Prologue: It doesn’t particularly matter if your Roman Legionaries are on 25mm, 30mm, or 32mm bases as long as you know which model represents which.) The game rules in the prologue are very well written, I am really looking forward to play it.

The minis are of very good quality, detailed but not over the top, they paint very easily. The minis have a very heroic fantasy-like feel, but are IMO very well suited to the theme of the game.

Marius, 3 legionnaires and 3 archers from Crocodile Games. When printed at 31 mm the minis go very well together.

The Roman officer Marius

More Romans: Buccio the engineer, Gato and Lucius (friend of officer Marius) - note the four eyed Lion trophy! I will use them as Roman Legionaries to play through the Prologue.

Stand in for Auxiliary Archers, since the Archers were also not included in the STLs from the RPG, I had to find a suitable alternative. Thankfully I still got plenty of fantastic minis from the Crocodile Games Olympus range. The Olympus Athenian Archers are fitting right in scale wise. And as far as the background goes, let’s just presume that Marius and Lucius picked them up on their journey from Syria to Germania.

Servitors of Mormo

Stand in for Ghouls of Mormo, the Ghouls were not included in the STLs from the RPG, so I had to be creative. The minis are from the HATE Kickstarter, Tribe of Sarrassa. The big fella is a stand in for the Chosen of Mormo.

Stand in for Teufelshunde, the Teufelshunde were also not included in the STLs from the RPG, so I simply used metal minis from the Achtung! Cthulhu Kickstarter.

Stand in for Places of Power. Quote from the Prologue: "In the third scenario, you will need a Place of Power - an old ruin, statue, standing stone, or similar. Of course, you can adapt this to your own terrain collection...". OK - done! The Living Icon by Fenris is framed by two Deep One statures (of unknown origin, maybe monolithdesigns?).

The Kickstarter is running until the end of June 2024. I can only highly recommend it, if you like Cthulhu horror in a historical inspired fantasy setting, THIS might be your game.
(Before anyone asked – I am not an employee of Modiphiüs, I just like the KS so far!) ;)

Achtung! Cthulhu

“Achtung! Cthulhu started life as a roleplaying setting for the Call of Cthulhu and Savage World games. We first launched few stand alone adventures before running the massive Achtung! Cthulhu Kickstarter which funded 11 books in the range, accessories and a line of miniatures. In the Achtung! Cthulhu universe, a band of Allied heroes fight the Secret War against the Nazi Black Sun and their rivals Nachtwolfe. Powered with ancient secrets and terrible Mythos allies, Black Sun and Nachtwolfe are on the verge of unleashing terrible weapons upon the Allied forces. ” - from the Modiphiüs website.

I backed their initial Kickstarter including the corresponding minis. Because of other projects and my “real life” (TM) workload I just came around now to paint some of them. Below are Teufelshunde and Corporal Akhee Singh.

Cthulhu: Death May Die

“The ritual cannot be stopped, but the cultists’ plans might still be.

The cultists have been painstaking preparing for this moment for quite some time. An Elder God, a being adrift in a different dimension, has reached out into their minds, giving them the knowledge necessary to awaken it and bring it into our own world, unleashing its hellish powers on the unsuspecting populace. Too late did the Investigators find out about it. The final ritual has begun. But with a little luck, the god might just be vulnerable for a moment after being summoned. That’s when they can shoot it in the face.

Cthulhu: Death May Die puts players in charge of Investigators looking to defeat an Elder God that is being summoned to Earth. They are running late, as the summoning ritual is already underway. But if they can collect enough clues to find a weakness, or alter the ritual just enough to cause one, they can blast the god to death before it gets a foothold. Working together, players will fight cultists, search for answers, and try to keep their already-broken minds from warping even further.” from the KS

Another very successful CMON Kickstarter, since I like Cthulhu I pledged. I was NOT disappointed, some great minis and the game plays really well too!

Heroes

From left to right: Olivia Duchamp, The Kid and Ian Welles

From left to right:  Ahmed Yasin, Richard Irons and Fleur Dubois
Very easy to paint, little moldlines - a pleasure!

Elder One boxes

The Hastur Elder One box includes an avatar of Hastur and 4 robed disciples. Again a pleasure to paint.

Monster

Chthonian - "Flowing tentacles and pulpy gray-black, elongated sack of a body...no distinguishing features at all other than the reaching, groping tentacles. Or was there—yes—a lump in the upper body of the thing...a container of sorts for the brain, basal ganglia, or whichever diseased organ governed this horror's loathsome life!"
Brian Lumley , The Burrowers Beneath

Hunting Horror - “And hoary Nodens raised a howl of triumph when Nyarlathotep, close on his quarry, stopped baffled by a glare that seared his formless hunting-horrors to grey dust.”
HPL , Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath

Ghouls - "The madness and monstrosity lay in the figures in the foreground- for Pickman's morbid art was pre-eminently one of demoniac portraiture. These figures were seldom completely human, but often approached humanity in varying degree. Most of the bodies, while roughly bipedal, had a forward slumping, and a vaguely canine cast. The texture of the majority was a kind of unpleasant rubberiness."
H.P. Lovecraft, Pickman's Model

Deep Ones - "The Deep Ones are an ocean-dwelling race, as evidenced by their name, with an affinity for mating with humans. They entered a contract with the people of Innsmouth to keep the fish plentiful in their area. They also seem to have a supply of gold artifacts of unearthly design. The Deep Ones worship Father Dagon and his consort Mother Hydra
H.P. Lovecraft, The Shadow Over Innsmouth

Dark Young - "Ever Their praises, and abundance to the Black Goat of the Woods. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!"
H.P. Lovecraft , "The Whisperer in Darkness"

IMO the Cthulhu setting is a great addition to any Pulp era gaming. So I looked for suitable miniatures and found some from Reaper. The left mini is very fitting for any priest of the ancient one, while the right one will work fine for a smaller incarnation of the Great Cthulhu himself.

The big and the “baby” Cthulhu are from Reaper, the other monster Grenadier Nyarlathotep (now a Spawn Horror from Mirliton Nightmares range

Another Group shot with some RAFM Deep Ones.

RAFM Deep One; Lovecraft provides a description of the Deep One in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth":
“I think their predominant colour was a greyish-green, though they had white bellies. They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. I was somehow glad that they had no more than four limbs. Their croaking, baying voices, clearly used for articulate speech, held all the dark shades of expression which their staring faces lacked...They were the blasphemous fish-frogs of the nameless design - living and horrible.”

The Living Icon by Fenris

A great piece of scenery that will enhance every Pulp or Cthulhu game!

Living Icon by Fenris and curious Professor by Pulp Minis

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