Warlords of Atlantis Part 1 & catching up in the reading list.

Well that was a week I don't want to repeat in a hurry.

One minute I am thinking about the ever growing list of projects that need completing and when I am going to find the time, the next thing you know I am in A&E and a protracted period in hospital.... Damn bits of human machine have started to fail, I was hoping to get a bit further than 44 years... :-(

Every cloud has a sliver lining and with little else to do I did manage to catch up on several books that have been languishing on the book shelf for several months/years these included A couple of books on Napoleon in Egypt, the Haiti Revolution, the RUF in Serria Leone and the Cutlass Rule book.

With a week at home I might even be able to sneak in the odd painting session whilst my Kidney's right themselves.

The first distraction to benefit from my enforced leave is the Warlords of Atlantis figures from Antediluvian Miniatures, I picked these up in March as they were lovely sculpts but could not think of a reason to use them.

However having read the Cutlass Rules I have a plan.....

Unless you were not a child of the 70's or 80's this may not be a film known to you but at the time had perhaps some of the best looking evil hencemen, although in truth they had limited screen time...

Warlords of Atlantis (1978) was perhaps the last of it's kind a Saturday Matinee Style fantasy romp.

Special effects a little on the dodgy side and it certainly lacked the BIG budget of future releases.

Around the beginning of the 20th century, British archaeologist Professor Aitken and his son, Charles, chartered a ship called the Texas Rose to take them out to sea, where they plan to dive underwater in a diving bell designed by engineer Greg Collinson.

Charles and his father are secretly searching for proof of the existence of the lost city of Atlantis.

Greg and Charles discover a statue made of solid gold, which is then hoisted up to the Texas Rose. The deckhands hatch a scheme to steal it, as they put their plan into action  a gigantic octopus known as the Sentinel, sent by the inhabitants of Atlantis, attacks the ship and the crew are thrown into the sea.

The castaways find themselves washed ashore in an unknown land.
They are greeted by Atmir and his Guardians who promise to take them "to safety". En route, Greg, Charles and the others are told by Atmir that Atlantis is not just one city, but seven cities, the first two of which have been "lost beneath the waters of the outer limits forever" and the third one, Troya, is now deserted and empty.

Atmir takes the surface-dwellers through the causeway, a prehistoric swamp inhabited by the Mogdaan, and then on to Vaar, the fourth city.

Once here, Greg and the others are thrown into a dungeon were they make friends with Briggs, the captain of the Mary Celeste and unofficial leader of the Atlanteans' human slaves, and his daughter, Delphine. Briggs informs them they are to be slaves to protect Vaar from the constant attacks of creatures known as Zaargs.

They will be given gills so they can never leave Atlantis and return to the oxygen-rich surface world, as the Atlanteans, being originally from Mars, breathe a different atmosphere. A convenient Zaarg attack allows Greg and the others to escape from their cell, but also claims the life of Briggs eaten by a Zaarg.

They steal some rifles the Atlantians have acquired from a ship they plundered and retrace the route they took through the causeway when being brought to Vaar.

After several further scrapes they make it back to the surface via the diving bell where they are again attacked by the Octopus who destroys the ship and returns the golden statue back to the deep.

Quite a seat filler in it's day - but surely these Atlantians must have been plundering ships for hundreds of years... So Atlantians/Pirates whose to say... cue a small project...

These will give me something to do whilst I prep more Napoleonics for the Ottoman project.