Super pop culture showdown!
July 27, 2016You’ve heard of pirates vs. ninjas, haven’t you? It’s one of those pop culture tropes that just sort of sprung up, most likely [citation needed] through the following chain of reasoning:
- Everyone loves ninjas.
- Everyone loves pirates.
- Ninjas are tougher, though.
- No, pirates are.
- Pirates vs. ninjas it is.
I’ve long known Paul “Cheetor” Shorten – who runs the wonderful sho3box blog – from the miniatures blogosphere, as we started our blogs around the same time and were both initially blogging about zombie miniatures. He’s lately been working on his wonderful pseudohistorical fantasy Japan project (see the tags Shonen Knives and Kurîpu jima), and with me working on my pirates…it figures. When I made the travel plans for our Spring UK trip, we threw in a week in Ireland and set aside time for a blogger meet-up! This gave us not only the chance to spend some quality time with Mr. & Mrs. Cheetor, but also the opportunity to put the question of pirates vs. ninjas to rest through the gentlemanly art of wargaming.
I won’t bother with a long write-up of the game itself. It was a fairly quick one, using the Song of Blades and Heroes mechanics roughly cobbled together from various Ganesha Games titles. The dread undead pirate captain Armitage Shanks brought his dastardly crew to the peaceful town of Kurîpu Jima to steal their obviously cursed treasure.
To be honest, we kept the game short and sweet, spending much more time setting up the table and talking about miniatures, wargaming and everything related long into the night. The result of the game, perhaps luckily, didn’t solve the question of pirates vs. ninjas – Cheetor’s ninjas soundly destroyed my pirates in combat, yet what was left of wily captain Shanks’ crew managed to make off with the treasure.
Without further ado, here’s a bunch of photos! Most are fantastical reconstructions instead of actual in-game pictures. You can click on any photo for a larger version.
All in all, we had a great time! My sincere thanks to Cheetor and Mrs. Cheetor for accommodating us and making all this possible. It was a pleasure playing on such a beautiful table against such a gentlemanly opponent. I was very happy to finally get to meet a fellow blogger who I think of as a friend after years of online-only communication.
Dawn of the Lead 
Arr me hearties. This be a fine battle report and no mistake. Well it be a fine series of photographs depictin’ a battle. Well, actually, it be a fine series of photos reconstructin’ a depiction of… arr ferget it. Ye had fun, that’s all that matters. Yarr!
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Excellent!
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As the wargaming result was inconclusive, the Ninja vs Pirates issue will have to be settled by battle rap next time. Its the only way to be certain.
It was great having you two over Mikko and you are welcome again any time.
As for friendship, I wouldnt stoop to watching the Eurovision with just anyone you know ;D
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Hahah, thanks for having us! And what is said about Eurovision goes double with Fatal Deviation.
Battle rap it is, next time!
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I forgot that I subjected you to that movie. That evens the score.
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[…] Source: Super pop culture showdown! […]
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Awesome! Two stunning & unique warbands on the same table is always a special event – so cool that you got to meet in RL 🙂
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Thanks for the comment Alex! It was great fun meeting Paul, I always figured we’d get on well IRL. I made him watch the Eurovision song contest and he subjected me to the worst action movie in the world, Fatal Deviation. Oh and the minis were nice too!
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Sounds good mate – good on you both for making it happen! I’m off to BOYL next weekend, so I’m hoping to put some ‘faces-to-blogs’ as well 🙂
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NINJAS
PIRATES…
Really, you could’ve just stopped typing right there 🙂
Lucky for us, you didn’t!
Just awesome!
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Thanks Will! It was certainly a match made in heaven.
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[…] story was a suitable genre piece, with the dread undead pirate captain Armitage Shanks (last seen bothering the Orient) coming to claim charming young Rosalie Underwood for his bride for all eternity at the strike of […]
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[…] constraints, I’m super happy to have reached my hobby goals for once. Salute was great, and meeting Paul of sho3box fame was definitely one of the high points of the hobby […]
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[…] couple of months ago, Mikko from Dawn of the Lead and I were discussing pirates. Mikko is a long term pirate aficionado and I once wore a Halloween pirate costume in the early […]
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