John Carter of Mars Heroes 01

When Dave Stone recently visited me, he discussed how his sci-fi gladiators game, Death Match, originated. It was whilst watching the 2012 film, John Carter, where John is fighting in an arena, that Dave thought how cool it would be to create a sci-fi gladiators game. Despite the film getting panned by many critics, Dave and I are both fans of the film. So from that germ of an idea, the game was developed. Anyway, what I forgot to tell Dave was that I had a small selection of 28mm scale John Carter figures. They are produced by Tin Man Miniatures and I bought them at the beginning of this year when TMM had a 30% discount sale. Funnily enough, they are also offering this same discount this month up until the 18th. Dave's comments about John Carter got me to thinking about how perfect these figures would be for his Death Match game. Currently, he only has one human gladiator (a female) for sale in his webstore. More will be available later.

From left to right are John Carter, Dejah Thoris and Woola. Most likely for copyright reasons, Tin Man Miniatures have renamed them as Jack Carson, Princess Dari and Moola. Jack Carson/John Carter is available as shown above or in a nude version. He is armed with a cavalry sabre and a pistol and he would be right at home in a game of Death Match. I won't go into any details about who John Carter is, as I'm sure most, if not all of you, are familiar with him. If not, check him out on Google or Wikipedia... or get the book the film is based on, A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Princess Dari/Dejah Thoris is a native of Mars (called Barsoom by the inhabitants of Mars) who falls in love with Carter. I am quite familiar with Dejah from the comic book series by Dynamite. Indeed, she once teamed up with Vampirella and Red Sonja in the epic Swords of Sorrow series as one of the three wielders of the aforementioned swords. Once again, Tin Man offers a clothed and nude version of this figure. This time, I opted for the nude version, although as you can see, she isn't totally nude, just topless. Whilst she is a very good fighter in the books, comics and film, I don't think she'd fare well in Death Match. Her lack of armour and single weapon puts her at a big disadvantage. At least Carter has a pistol to deal with opponents at a distance, even he is also lacking in protection.
Moola/Woola is described as a "Calot" - a large creature that resembles an amphibian and behaves like a loyal dog. He becomes devoted to Carter and is rarely far from his side. He has ten legs and thus is very fast.
I bought these figures because, A) I liked the film, B) I'm a big fan of Dejah from her comics and C) because they were on offer at the time. I can certainly find uses for all three figures in some of the games I play. I'm undecided about buying more figures from this range to recreate a Barsoomian skirmish game. I received very good service from TMM, who are based in America. They quite often have these sales, so it is well worth waiting for one to come along if you want to place an order with them.